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LELAND    STANFORD    JUNIOR    UNIVERSITY    PUBLICATIONS 
PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  MONOGRAPH   NO.   1 


Experiments 

IN 

Psychical  Research 

AT 
LELAND   STANFORD   JUNIOR   UNIVERSITY 


BY 
JOHN   EDGAR   COOVER 

Fellow  in  Psychical  Research  and  Assistant  Professor  of  Psychology 


With  a  Foreword  by  DAVID  STARR  JORDAN,  Chancellor 
Emeritus;  an  Introduction  by  Professor  FRANK  ANGELL, 
Head  of  Department  of  Psychology;  and  a  Part  by  Professor 
LlLLIEN    J.  MARTIN,    Professor   Emeritus  of   Psychology 


From  the  Division  of  Psychical  Research 
Department  of  Psychology 


STANFORD  UNIVERSITY,  CALIFORNIA 

PUBLISHED  BY  THE  UNIVERSITY 

1917 


LELAND   STANFORD    JUNIOR    UNIVERSITY    PUBLICATIONS 
PSYCHICAL   RESEARCH   MONOGRAPH   No.   1 


Experiments 

IN 

Psychical  Research 

AT 
LELAND   STANFORD   JUNIOR    UNIVERSITY 


BY 
JOHN    EDGAR   COOVER 

Fellow  in  Psychical  Research  and  Assistant  Professor  of  Psychology 


With  a  Foreword  by  DAVID  STARR  JORDAN,  Chancellor 
Emeritus;  an  Introduction  by  Professor  FRANK  ANGELL, 
Head  of  Department  of  Psychology;  and  a  Part  by  Professor 
LlLLIEN    J.  MARTIN,    Professor    Emeritus  of   Psychology 


From  the  Division  of  Psychical  Research 
Department  of  Psychology 


STANFORD  UNIVERSITY,  CALIFORNIA 

PUBLISHED  BY  THE   UNIVERSITY 

1917 


EDUC. 

PSYCH. 

LIBRARY 


Stanford  University 
Press 


Dedicated 

to 

THOMAS   WELTON    STANFORD 

Whose  Wisdom  in  Providing  Opportunities 

for     Scientific      Investigation      Has 

Anticipated  the  Greatest  Need 

of  Psychical  Research 


354001 


FOREWORD 

Science  is  human  experience  tested  and  set  in  order.  It  involves  not 
alone  the  experience  of  the  individual,  but  so  far  as  may  be,  the  accumu- 
lated or  recorded  experience  of  the  race,  of  which  the  experience  of  the 
individual  furnishes  the  basis  of  understanding.  To  enter  the  category 
of  science,  the  data  on  which  generalized  results  are  based  must  be  fully 
tested  in  order  to  eliminate  personal  equations  whatever  their  form  or 
origin. 

In  the  investigation  of  the  varied  phenomena  embraced  under  the 
term  of  "Psychical  Research,"  as  in  any  other  department  of  knowledge, 
the  Scientific  Method  is  the  sole  instrument  on  which  we  can  depend.  To 
every  apparent  fact  we  must  apply  the  tests  of  science:  observation,  ex- 
periment, logic,  and  instruments  of  precision.  That  the  phenomena  in 
this  field  are  peculiarly  baffling  affords  no  ground  for  discouragement. 
By  the  methods  of  precision  they  are  reducible  to  scientific  order,  and 
we  may  be  sure  that  in  this  field  as  in  any  other  we  can  safely  follow 
wherever  Truth  shall  lead.  Genuine  knowledge  can  never  run  counter 
to  sound  principles  in  human  life. 

But  in  this  difficult  borderland  of  psychology  in  which  subjective 
and  objective  mental  conditions  are  closely  intertangled,  the  investigator 
finds  it  well  to  be  cautious.  Obvious  explanations  are  seldom  the  true 
ones,  and  generalizations  hastily  drawn  from  them  may  check  the  growth 
of  knowledge.  In  this  field,  perhaps  above  all  others,  the  use  of  the 
"method  of  intuition"  as  an  instrument  of  precision  is  sadly  out  of 
place.  One  supreme  test  of  safety  in  generalization  is  the  articulation 
of  supposed  facts  with  the  knowledge  already  tested  and  organized  by 
science. 

The  work  in  Psychical  Research  at  Stanford  University  has  rested 
from  the  first  on  "the  solid  ground  of  nature."  At  the  present  sta^e,  its 
methods  seem  more  important  than  its  results,  although  the  latter,  while 
not  sensational,  are  unquestionably  substantial. 

David  Starr  Jordan. 


To  believe  is  dangerous,  to  be  unbelieving  is  equally 
so;  the  Truth,  therefore,  should  be  diligently  sought 
after,  lest  that  a  foolish  opinion  should  lead  you  to 
pronounce  an  unsound  judgment. — Ph/edrus  :  Fables, 
Book  III,  10 :  i  and  5,  6. 


Hardly  as  yet  has  the  surface  of  the  facts  called 
"psychic"  begun  to  be  scratched  for  scientific  purposes. 
It  is  through  following  these  facts,  I  am  persuaded,  that 
the  greatest  scientific  conquests  of  the  coming  genera- 
tion will  be  achieved.  Kiihn  ist  das  Muhcn,  herrlich 
der  Lohn! — Wm.  James:  Final  Impressions  of  a  Psy- 
chical Researcher,  iooo,  in  Memories  and  Studies,  New 
York,  191 1,  p.  206. 


AUTHOR'S     PREFACE 

In  a  time  when  men's  minds,  scholars'  minds,  have  been  turned  from 
philosophy  to  science,  from  principles  implicit  in  human  experience  to 
principles  empirical  and  eclectic,  it  is  a  strange  anomaly  that  principles 
of  life  which  are  vital  enough  to  determine  men's  conduct  in  their  most 
serious  concerns,  and  which  are  prevalent  enough  to  be  continuously  op- 
erative in  every  civilized  and  uncivilized  portion  of  the  globe,  are  at  once 
hailed  by  a  small  but  important  part  of  the  learned  world  as  the  veritable 
principles  of  life,  challenged  by  another  equally  important  part  of  the 
learned  world  as  groundless,  and  ignored  by  the  great  body  of  the  re- 
sponsible men  of  science  as  unworthy  of  that  rigorous  inspection  by 
which  alone  principles  based  upon  the  phenomena  of  the  world  may  win 
the  imprimatur  of  scientific  confirmation  or  refutation. 

The  sheer  universality  of  human  interest  in,  and  human  allegiance  to, 
one  or  another  of  the  principles  based  upon  psychical,  or  other  "alleged" 
phenomena,  now  classified  in  the  field  of  Psychical  Research,  should  con- 
fer upon  these  phenomena  the  right  to  continuous  serious  scientific  inves- 
tigation regardless  of  the  lack  of  promise  which  it  seems  to  the  general 
body  of  the  men  of  science  to  offer.  It  is  no  adequate  defense  to  claim 
that  science  has  no  time  to  go  out  of  its  way  to  combat  the  superstitions 
and  prejudices  of  men;  for  no  matter  to  what  extent  superstition  and 
prejudice  may  be  supported  by  these  alleged  phenomena,  the  phenomena 
are  initially  accepted  because  it  is  believed  they  have  been  repeatedly  ob- 
served by  trustworthy,  even  eminently  qualified,  observers. 

Now  that  university  education  is  shared  by  an  increasingly  large 
proportion  of  the  people  in  civilized  countries,  and  scientific  knowledge 
is  being  widely  disseminated,  the  obligation  of  science  to  the  public,  in 
respect  to  these  matters,  is  heavy  and  is  becoming  increasingly  greater. 
It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  situation  will  now  improve,  and  that  other  cen- 
ters of  learning  will  also  assume  this  obligation  and  thereby  make  cooper- 
ative investigation  possible. 

The  experiments  described  in  this  monograph  fall  into  several 
classes  of  investigations  which  are  fairly  closely  related  to  each  other, 
and  which  are  believed  to  be  of  fundamental  importance  to  Psychical 
Research.  They  are  offered  as  some  slight  contribution  to  science,  of 
interest  particularly  to  those  who  are  more  or  less  technically  familiar 
with  Psychical  Research ;   possibly  their  less  technical  portions  may  inter- 


yiii  AUTHOR  S  PREFACE 

est  the  layman.  Lest  the  latter,  however,  be  disappointed  in  finding  no 
brief  either  for  or  against  the  general  phenomena  in  this  field,  the  assur- 
ance must  hereby  be  offered  him  that  the  research  is  undertaken  with  a 
zeal  for  Truth,  and  is  projected  and  controlled  with  an  anxiety  for  the 
strength  of  the  bridge  it  is  building,  which  must  bear  the  strain  of  the 
passage  of  men  of  learning,  men  of  influence,  men  of  science,  from  the 
shore  of  accepted  knowledge  to  the  island  of  the  not-yet-recognized. 
Safety  forbids  bias  or  precipitancy.  This  laboratory  report  completes 
the  first  stage  of  construction. 

Herein  will  be  found  ( I )  a  statistical  method  of  experiment  in  Psy- 
chical Research  which,  it  is  believed,  will  be  acceptable  to  science  and  will 
prove  adequate  for  resolving  doubt  and  controversy  concerning  tthe 
alleged  supernormal  acquisition  of  knowledge  (telepathy,  lucidity  or 
clairvoyance,  or  communication  from  discarnate  intelligences  capable  of 
apprehending  facts  in  our  world)  ;  and  (2)  the  results  of  the  first  appli- 
cations of  this  method. 

It  will  be  readily  apparent  to  the  scholar  that  much  of  the  mono- 
graph has  been  written  under  great  pressure,  a  circumstance  regrettable 
but  unavoidable;  the  work  of  investigation  has  not  been  permitted  to 
suffer  interruption,  and  it  was  not  advisable  to  delay  longer  the  first  re- 
port from  our  laboratory.  Haste  has  not  been  made  at  the  expense  of 
accuracy,  however;  and,  although  the  literary  quality  of  the  exposition 
has  undoubtedly  suffered,  it  is  hoped  that  the  reports  of  the  various 
researches  will  be  found  sufficiently  clear  and  complete  to  serve  their 
purpose.  It  should  be  mentioned,  perhaps,  that  various  labor-saving  appli- 
ances have  been  utilized,  such  as  calculating  and  adding  machines,  mathe- 
matical tables,  and  the  slide-rule ;  the  last  mentioned  having  been  con- 
sistently used  in  calculating  percentages.  Mathematical  accuracy 
sufficient  for  our  purpose  has  certainly  been  attained.  And  deficiencies  in 
the  plates  must  be  credited  to  the  writer's  general  ineptitude  with  India- 
ink. 

The  Division  of  Psychical  Research  is  indebted  to  Dr.  Lillien  Jane 
Martin  for  Part  V,  a  record  of  work  which  she  has  carried  out  independ- 
ent of  the  Psychical  Research  Foundation ;  and  also  for  her  zeal  in  the 
work  of  equipping  the  Psychical  Research  laboratory. 

The  writer  is  under  many  special  obligations  to  those  who  have  con- 
tributed to  the  investigations,  or  to  the  compilation  of  this  monograph: 
First  and  foremost  to  his  colleagues  in  the  Department  of  Psychology 
for  innumerable  courtesies  with  respect  not  only  to  sound  counsel  but 
also  to  the  free  use  he  has  made  of  laboratory  rooms,  equipment,  and 
students  of  their  classes ;   to  the  many  students  who  have  rendered  faith- 


AUTHOR  S  PREFACE  IX 

ful  service  in  the  experiments  reported  herein;  to  the  California  Psy- 
chical Research  Society  for  its  generous  cooperation  in  research  in  San 
Francisco;  to  Professor  Milo  A.  Tucker,  and  to  Mr.  G.  P.  W.  Jensen, 
for  indispensable  assistance  in  experiments  with  'sensitives'  in  San  Fran- 
cisco; to  Professor  E.  P.  Cubberley,  Dean  of  the  School  of  Education, 
for  the  generous  loan  of  a  dictaphone  for  two  years ;  to  the  Assistant 
Registrar,  J.  E.  McDowell,  for  access  to  students'  percentile  grades ;  to 
the  Staff  in  the  Library,  particularly  to  Librarian  G.  T.  Clark,  and  Miss 
Lena  M.  Keller,  for  assistance  in  the  compilation  of  the  catalogue  of 
works  in  the  psychical-research  library ;  to  the  American  Society  for 
Psychical  Research,  the  American  Journal  of  Psychology,  and  the  Psy- 
chological Review,  for  permission  to  use  material  published  in  their 
pages ;  to  students,  J.  T.  Reynolds,  D.  C.  Upp,  F.  S.  Fearing  and  Miss 
Else  Nagel  for  faithful  clerical  and  statistical  assistance;  and  to  many 
others  for  kind  offices  too  numerous  for  separate  mention. 


The  Fellow  in  Psychical  Research. 


Stanford  University, 
July  27,  1917. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Foreword.     By  Dr.  David  Starr  Jordan v 

Author's    Preface    v" 

Index   of   Illustrations xv 

Introduction.     By  Dr.  Frank  Angell xvii 

PART  I 

THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE. 

The  Present  Importance  of  the  Problem 3 

The  Role  of  Telepathy  as  an  Alternative  Hypothesis  to  Spirit   Commun- 
ication      5 

This  Dominating  Role  of  Telepathy  Challenged 13 

The  Present  Status  of  Telepathy 17 

Further   Experimental   Work   Imperative 22 

Experiments  on  Thought-Transference 29 

I.     Guessing  of   Lotto-Block    Numbers 31 

Introduction  31 

Method    35 

Results     38 

Number-Habits     43 

Imagery     45 

Conclusion    46 

II.     Guessing  of  Playing-Cards 48 

Series   I.     Reagents   Normal 48 

Reagents    50 

Method    51 

Results     54 

Analysis   of   Results ■ 66 

Illustration   67 

Relation  Between  R  Cases  and  Experimenter's  Imagery 69 

Relation  Between  R  Cases  and  Congruity  of  Imagery 7* 

Relation    Between    R   Cases   and   Reagent's    Feeling   of    Cer- 
tainty      73 

Variation   in    Distance 77 

Variation    in    Time 77 

Test  for  Retarded  Effect 78 

Statistical  Treatment  of  Data  by  Use  of  Mathematical  Formulas...  79 

Application  of  Probability  Formulae  to  Central  Measures 80 

Comparison    of   the   Empirical   with   their   Theoretical   Distri- 
butions     95 

Application  of  Usual  Statistical  Formulae  to  Central  and  Other 

Single  Measures 105 

Statistical  Expectation   of  Reagents 109 

Analysis  of  Experience no 

Application  of  Our  Results  to  the  Making  of  a  "Mental  Telepathist"  118 

Control  Series  with  Corneal  Reflection 121 

Conclusion    123 

xi 


Xli  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Series   II.     Reagents   'Sensitive' 125 

The  Reagents    125 

The  Results   126 

Psychological  Analysis  of  Experience 130 

The  Professional  Psychics 130 

The  Private  Psychics 137 

Conclusion    142 

III.     "The  Feeling  of  Being  Stared  At" 144 

The  Prevalence  of  Belief  Among  University  Students 144 

Series  I.     The  Reagent  Required  to  Judge  "Yes"  or  "No" 146 

Results  147 

Qualitative   Results 150 

Conclusion    152 

Series  II.     The  Reagent  Requested  to  Record  his  Experience 153 

Results  154 

Supplementary    Experiments 156 

Series  III.     Multiple  Starers 158 

Results  159 

Conclusion    167 

PART  II. 
EXPERIMENTS   ON   SUBLIMINAL   IMPRESSION. 

Orientation  171 

Experiments  190 

Division  I.     With  the  Wirthian  Tachistoscope 191 

Procedure  191 

Results  192 

Division  II.     With  the  Wundtian  Tachistoscope 198 

Procedure  198 

Results  199 

Division  III.     Peripheral  Impression 205 

Results  206 

Division    IV.  Miscellaneous    Series 214 

§1.     Sumbliminal   Impressions  from  Corneal   Reflections 214 

§11.     Subliminal  Impressions  of  Playing-Cards  at  a  Distance 217 

§111.     The  Whispering  of  the  Stimulus 219 

1.  Letters  and  Digits 220 

2.  Playing-Cards    222 

3.  Numbers    222 

§  iv.     Involuntary  Signals   223 

Conclusion    224 


CONTENTS  Xlll 

PART  III. 
MENTAL  HABIT,  AND  INDUCTIVE  PROBABILITY. 

PAGE 

Mental  Habit  230 

The  Influence  of  Mental  Habit  upon  Judgment 230 

Population  by  Age 231 

Terms  of  Criminal  Sentences 234 

Estimates   of   Star-Magnitudes 240 

Students'   Grades   247 

Temperature   on   Pike's   Peak 249 

Temperature   in    Mauritius,   in   the   Greenwich   Observatory,   in   Hert- 
fordshire, and  in  Dundee 249 

Cloudiness   at   Bremen 252 

Rainfall  in  New  England 252 

Estimates  of  Time  from  Kymograph  Time-Records 252 

Estimates  of  Star-Transits 255 

Estimates  of  Time  and  Space 262 

Studies   in   Guessing 265 

Distribution  of  the   Number-Habit 271 

Other  Mental  Habits 276 

Explanatory  Considerations   281 

Application  of  Mental  Habit  to  Experiments  in  Thought-Transference. . . .  291 
Application  of  Mental  Habit  to  Our  Experiments  on  Subliminal  Impression  309 

Inductive   Probability   313 

Empirical  and  Theoretical  Distributions 314 

Empirical  and  Theoretical  Central  Measures 323 

The    Infinitesimal    Probability.  .' 346 

PART  IV. 
EXPERIMENTS  IN  SOUND  ASSIMILATION. 

Introduction  369 

Division  I.     Nonsense-Syllables 373 

Method    373 

Results  375 

Section      1.     Syllables  with  Initial  and  Final  Consonantal  Sounds 375 

Section    II.     Syllables  with  an  Initial  or  Final  Consonantal  Sound 379 

Section   in.     The  Respective  Consonantal  Sounds 381 

Division  II.     Simulated  English  Text 386 

Dictation       1 388 

Dictation    II 390 

Dictation  III 391 

Dictation   IV 393 

Dictation     V 395 

Numerical  Results   395 

Introspections    397 

Conclusion    401 


XIV  CONTENTS 

PART  V. 
CONTRIBUTIONS  BY  PROFESSOR  LILLIEN  JANE  MARTIN. 

PACE 

I.     A  Case  of  Pseudo-Prophecy 411 

II.     Local  Ghosts  and  the  Projection  of  Visual  Images 413 

III.     An  Experimental  Study  of  the  Subconscious 422 

The  Image  Method  versus  the  Automatic  Writing  and  Speaking  Methods 

of  Penetrating  Below  the  Threshold  of  Consciousness 426 

Automatic  Speaking  Method  versus  the  Image  Method 437 

The    Image    Method    versus    the    Pathological    and    the    Psychoanalytical 

Methods  of  Investigating  the  Subconscious 437 


APPENDIN. 


A.  Tables    44* 

B.  Experiments   in   Long-Distance   Thought-Transference 452 

C.  Grounds    for    Scientific    Caution    in    the    Acceptance    of    the    "Proof"    of 

Thought-Transference    461 

The  Creery  Experiments 463 

The  Smith-Blackburn  Experiments 477 

The  "N"-Ray  Delusion 495 

Conclusion    499 

D.  Investigation    with    a    "Trumpet"    Medium.      By   the   California    Psychical 

Research   Society 5°3 

Dr.  Coover's  Report 505 

1.  Relation  of  the  "Voices"  to  the  Psychic's  Physiological  Processes...   506 

2.  Relation  of  the  "Physical  Phenomena"  to  the  Psychic's  Body 524 

3.  The  Relation  of  the  "Seance  Personalities"  to  the  Psychic's  Mind...   535 

E.  Catalogue  of  Literature  in  the  Library  of  Leland  Stanford  Junior  University 

Relating  Directly  or  Indirectly  to  Psychical  Research 551 

Books     55i 

Periodicals  and   Proceedings 617 

INDEXES. 

Lvejex    of    Names 6-5 

Index    of    Subjects 629 


INDEX  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PLATE  PAGE 

I.     Floor-Plan  and  Equipment  of  the  Division  of  Psychical  Research. xxiv 
II.     Showing  Mental  Habit  in  the  guessing  of  Lotto-Blocks 44 

III.  The  limits  of  chance  deviation  in  R  cases  on  Card,  Color,  Number, 

and  Suit,  for  sets  of  50  to  10,000  experiments 91 

IV.  The  same ;    for  sets  of  50  to  1000  experiments 93 

V.     Distribution  of  R  guesses  on  the  Card 99 

VI.     Distribution  of  R  guesses  on  the  Color 99 

VII.     Distribution  of  R  guesses  on  the  Number 101 

VIII.     Distribution  of  R  guesses  on  the  Suit 102 

IX.     Distribution  of  guesses  wholly  wrong I04 

X.     Deviation  from  probability  expected  by  52  reagents  on  Card,  Color, 
Number  and  Suit,  compared  with  the  Limit  of  Chance  and  the 

actual    results    in 

XI.     Distribution    of    expected    per    cents    of    R    cases    compared    with 

chance    distribution     in 

XII.     Distribution  of  the  number  of  A  grades  and  the  number  of  A  and 

B  grades  given  by  one  reagent.     100  reagents 113 

XIII.  Population  of  the  United  States  by  Age.     Twelfth  Census  (1900).  232 

XIV.  The  Same.     Thirteenth  Census    ( 1910) 233 

XV.     Terms    of    criminal    sentence    in    the    United    States.      Eleventh 

Census     235 

XVI.     Female  sentences  for  grand  larceny.     257  cases 236 

XVII.     Single    commitments ;     actual    sentence    compared    with    sentence 

permissible  by  law.     58  cases 237 

XVIII.     Terms  of  criminal  sentence  in  England   (Galton) 239 

XIX.     Magnitudes  of  the  stars ;    Students'  Grades 243 

XX.     Corrected  distribution  of  the  Durchmustcrung  estimates 245 

XXa.  Estimates  of  star-magnitudes.     Distribution  of  tenth  magnitudes..  246 

XXI.     Thermometric  observations.     Frequency  of  tenth  degrees 251 

XXII.     Distribution  of  the  final  digit  in  judgments  of  various  kinds  over 

the   number  series 253 

XXIII.  Distribution  of  estimates  from  kymograph  time-records 254 

XXIV.  Star-transits.       Distributions     of    tenths     of    a     second,     showing 

V equation  decimate ;    Ages  of  the  Latin  dead 257 

XXV.     Star-transits    (Continued).      Showing   independence    of   t'equation 

decimate  of  practice,  instrument,  and  voluntary  correction 259 

XXVI.     Star-transits    (Continued).      Showing   independence    of    t'equation 

decimate  of  the  special   senses 261 

XXVII.     Time  and  space  estimations,  showing  number-preference  and  the 

"personal    scale"    263 

XXVIII.     Guessing.     Curves  showing  number-preferences 266 

XXIX.     Guessing   (Continued).     Curves  showing  a  new  type  of  "personal 

scale"     269 

XXX.     Deviations  from  probability  in  the  frequency  the  spots  on  playing- 
cards   were   drawn   and   guessed,   showing   influence   of   mental 

habit.     10,000  cases   270 

XXXI.     Frequency  of  occurrence  of  the  respective  spots  in  sets  of  100  ex- 
periments, as  drawn  and  as  guessed.     Showing  distribution   of 

mental  habit  among   100  reagents 272 

XXXII.     Number-preferences     273 

xv 


XVJ  INDEX  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 
PLATE 

XXXIII.  Distribution  of  numbers,  drawn  and  guessed  in  ioo  experiments.  . .  274 

XXXIV.  Distribution  of  numbers,  drawn  and  guessed  in  1000  experiments.  .  275 
XXXV.     Distribution  of  red  cards,  drawn  and  guessed  in  100  experiments..  276 

XXXVI.     Deviations    from    probability    in    frequency    of    suits    drawn    and 

guessed.     10,000  cases    2T1 

XXXVII.     Distribution  of  suit  drawn  and  guessed  in  100  experiments 278 

XXXVIII.     Deviations  from  probability  in  frequency  of  individual  cards  drawn 

and  guessed  in  10,000  experiments 279 

XXXIX.     Distribution  of  the  individual  card  drawn  and  guessed  in  100  ex- 
periments       2°° 

XL.     Curves   showing  dependence  of  I'equation   dccimale   upon  calibra- 
tion-marks       2°° 

XLI.     Frequency   curves   of   deviations   of   estimates   of   star-magnitudes 
from    the    Durchmusterung    magnitudes,    showing    influence    of 

similar  mental   habits    (,  Pickering) 295 

XLII.     Distributions  of  R  cases  in  card-guessing 3^7 

XLIII.     Distributions   of   the   occurrences   of  odd   die-spots,  and   of  white 

balls  drawn  from  an  urn 310- 

XLIV.     Distributions  of  the  occurrences  of  a  red  card  in  drawings  from  a 

shuffled  pack,  and  in  guesses  of  reagents 320 

XLV.     Distributions    of   "chance"    events    in    the    throwing   of    dice,    and 

drawing  of  balls  from  a  bag 322 

XLVI.     Distributions  of  "chance"   events   in  coin-tossing 324 

XLVII.     Distributions  of  "chance"  events  showing  bias  in  dice 326 

XLVIII.     Runs  in  Monte  Carlo  Roulette,  in  coin-tossing,  and  to  be  expected 

by    chance    328 

XLIX.     Per    cent    of    substitution    for    the    respective    simple    consonantal 

sounds  heard  through  the  dictaphone,  telephone,  and  the  air.  . .  382 

Plate  A.     Automatic  writing.     Observer  M 431 

Plate  B.    The  same.     Observer  0 435 

Figure    I.     Characters   used   by   Sidis 185 

2.  Characters  used  in  the  Wirthian  tachistoscope 191 

3.  Characters  used  in  the  Wundtian  tachistoscope 198 

4.  A   comparison   of  the   objective   with   the   "personal   scale"   of   the 

meteorological  observers  on  Pike's  Peak 288 

5.  The  arrangement  of  the  37  compartments  in  a  Monte  Carlo  Roulette 

wheel    328 

6.  "EDITOR":     Letters  for  a  test  in  visual  assimilation 404 

7.  Drawings  made  in  a  Smith-Blackburn  experiment  in  thought-trans- 

ference       481 

8.  The  kymograph   apparatus Opp.  508 

9.  Kymograph  records,  March  28  and  April  4 Opp.  510 

10.  Respiration  and  pulse  curves,  "Psychic"  normal 512  f. 

11.  The  same.     "Automatic"  voice,  "Katie" 5'4 

12.  The  same.     "Trumpet"  voice.  "Dr.  Truman" 516  f. 

13.  The  same.     "Independent"  voice,  "Professor  Wm.  James" 518  f. 

14.  The  same.    Records  from  Miss  Flatau 522 

15.  Smudge  on  kymograph  record Opp.  526 

16.  The   self-recording   telegraph   instrument Opp.  528 

17.  Record  of  contact  on  the  scale-covers Opp.  530 

18.  Fabric  imprint  made  by  "James'  "  "right  hand" Opp.  532 

Fig.  a.     Poster  of  the  Memorial  Arch  made  in   1903,  and  a  photograph  of  it 

taken  after  the  earthquake  in   1906 Opp.  412 


INTRODUCTION 
BY 

PROFESSOR  FRANK  ANGELL 


Psychology  has,  up  to  the  present,  shown  no  dis- 
position to  make  its  own  the  problems  of  psychical 
research  ;  yet  probably  no  one  will  be  found  to  deny 
their  importance. — Northcote  VV.  Thomas:  Thought- 
Trans fcrence,  London,  1905,  p.  20. 

Psychical  Research  is  at  present  in  disrepute  among 
scholars,  largely  because  psychical  researchers  do  not 
take  a  logical  psychological  attitude  toward  the  phe- 
nomena they  investigate.  .  .  .  The  investigation  of  phe- 
nomena which  are  alleged  to  be  not  in  accordance  with 
accepted  views  of  natural  law,  is  a  perfectly  legitimate 
activity. — Knight  Duni.ap:  A  System  of  Psychology, 
1912.  p.  343. 


INTRODUCTION 

In  January  of  1912  the  writer  was  informed  by  Dr.  Jordan,  then 
President  of  the  University,  that  Mr.  Thomas  Welton  Stanford,  brother 
of  Leland  Stanford  and  himself  one  of  the  University  Trustees,  had 
placed  at  the  disposal  of  the  University  the  sum  of  fio,ooo,  the  interest 
of  which  was  to  be  applied  to  investigations  in  the  field  of  what  may  be 
broadly  termed  Spiritualism  and  Psychical  Research,  and  Dr.  Jordan 
asked  if  the  Department  of  Psychology  was  willing  to  assume  the  grave 
responsibility  of  applying  the  endowment  to  work  in  this  field. 

And  here  it  must  be  frankly  stated  that  the  department  felt  that  any 
impulsive  or  hasty  acceptance  of  Mr.  Stanford's  generous  offer  was  out 
of  place;  in  justice  to  both  Mr.  Stanford  and  the  University  the  matter 
was  one  that  called  for  thoughtful  consideration.  For  it  was  obvious  that 
the  implications  inherent  in  investigations  in  psychic  or  spiritualistic 
phenomena  would  give  the  undertaking  a  different  character  from  that 
obtaining  in  ordinary  cases  of  endowments  for  scientific  research.  In  the 
first  place  the  problems  to  be  investigated  were  intimately  connected  with 
religious  beliefs  and  opinions  of  many  devout  persons,  among  them  Mr. 
Stanford  himself,  whose  house  in  Melbourne  has  long  been  the  home  of 
spiritualistic  seances.  But  tenets  of  religious  faith  in  St.  Paul's  sense  of 
"the  substance  of  things  hoped  for  and  the  evidence  of  things  not 
seen"  are  beyond  or  above  or  at  any  rate  outside,  the  methods  of  scientific 
investigation  ;  the  Department  of  Psychology  is  a  scientific  department  of 
the  University  and  its  methods  of  research  must  necessarily  advance  in 
accordance  with  the  canons  of  scientific  methods,  that  is, '"accurate  ob- 
servation andTtareful  verification  of  accessible  phenomena.  To  subject 
matters  on  which  good  men  and  true  had  based  comforting  and  abiding 
faith  to  the  cold  criticism  of  scientific  reason  would  be,  the  writer  felt, 
not  only  a  delicate  but  perhaps  a  thankless  task.  In  the  next  place  the 
situation  was  further  complicated  in  the  country  at  large  and  especially 
in  California  by  the  presence  among  the  devout  Spiritualists  of  many 
false  teachers  who  sought  to  exploit  spiritualistic  procedure  for  pecun- 
iary profit  with  the  natural  result  of  injuring  and  discrediting  the  cause 
of  Spiritualism  and  perplexing  those  who  wished  to  know  who  were 
genuine  leaders  of  the  faith.  The  findings  of  the  Seybert  Commission  of 
the  University  of  Pennsylvania  had  also  contributed  to  the  same  result, 
especially  among  the  universities.    Mr.  Henry  Seybert,  well-known  as  an 


INTRODUCTION 


earnest  believer  in  Spiritualism,  presented  to  the  University  of  Pennsyl- 
vania a  sum  of  money  sufficient  to  found  a  chair  of  philosophy  and  to 
defray  the  expenses  of  a  commission  to  investigate  the  "systems  of 
morals,  religion,  or  philosophy  .  .  .  and  particularly  of  modern  Spirit- 
ualism." This  commission  was  composed  of  ten  members,  among  them 
Dr.  W.  Pepper,  Provost  of  the  University,  Professor  G.  S.  Fullerton,  in- 
cumbent of  the  Chair  of  Philosophy,  and  Dr.  Weir  Mitchell,  the  well- 
known  neurologist.  To  these  were  added  Mr.  T.  R.  Hazard,  described  as 
an  uncompromising  believer  in  Spiritualism.  The  commission  investi- 
gated all  the  well-known  professional  mediums  they  could  induce  to  come 
to  Philadelphia:  their  findings  were  uniformly  unfavorable  to  the  pre- 
tensions of  the  mediums  and,  in  most  cases,  they  reported  fraud.  Among 
the  conditions,  consequently,  which  gave  the  Department  pause  in  coming 
to  a  decision  were  what  Sir  W.  F.  Barrett  has  termed  "the  scornful  at- 
titude of  the  scientific  world"  together  with  the  somewhat  delicate  nature 
of  Psychical  Research  on  account  of  religious  implications.  As  far  as 
Mr.  Stanford's  attitude  was  concerned  it  was  all  the  University  could 
wish  ;  the  endowment  was  wholly  unconditioned  and  there  were  no  limits 
as  regards  time  and  no  suggestions  as  regards  problems  or  results.  In 
these  respects,  therefore,  there  was  no  reason  why  the  University  should 
not  gladly  accept  the  endowment.  In  addition  the  carte  blanche  given  by 
Mr.  Stanford  freed  the  department  from  the  feeling  that  it  would  be  un- 
duly hampered  in  its  investigations  by  religious  complications ;  it  was 
simply  to  be  a  matter  of  scientific  investigation. 

The  question  then  arose  of  whether  in  view  of  Professor  Sidgwick's 
authoritative  utterance  to  the  effect  that  Psychical  Research  so  far  as  he 
could  tell,  had  made  no  discernible  progress  in  the  last  twenty  years,  the 
field  was  not  a  slough  of  despond  through  which  no  scientific  progress 
was  possible.  The  writer's  opinion  was  that  intensive  investigation  by 
trained  psychologists  devoting  themselves  wholly  to  this  work,  beginning 
with  the  simpler  problems,  would  bring  forth  results  of  scientific  value, 
though  manifestly  if  Sidgwick's  view  of  the  impracticable  nature  of  the 
field  was  even  approximately  correct,  but  slow  progress  could  be  ex- 
pected. However,  before  coming  to  any  final  decision  in  the  matter, 
letters  were  sent  to  the  psychology  departments  of  other  universities  ask- 
ing their  opinion  of  the  probable  worth  of  investigations  in  this  field. 
The  answers  were  uniformly  favorable  to  the  undertaking  and  from  two 
especially,  Cornell  University  and  the  University  of  California,  there 
came  valuable  suggestions  in  regard  to  problems  and  to  methods  of 
investigation. 


INTRODUCTION  XXI 

Feeling  then  that  the  work  could  be  taken  up  in  fairness  both  to  the 
University  and  to  Mr.  Stanford  the  Department  of  Psychology  accepted 
the  responsibility  of  administering  the  endowment.  The  endowment 
itself  was  large  enough  to  defray  the  expenses  of  a  Fellowship,  to  refit 
completely  and  equip  the  laboratory  rooms  assigned  to  the  work  by  the 
Department  and  to  supplement  the  apparatus  which  the  Department  was 
able  to  furnish  with  special  instruments  for  Psychical  Research.  In  addi- 
tion Mr.  Stanford  placed  about  £100  a  year  at  the  disposal  of  the  Univer- 
sity for  the  purchase  of  books  on  psychical  research  and  finally  added  to 
these  donations  the  large  collection  of  'apports'  produced  in  the  seances 
at  his  house  in  Melbourne.1 

One  of  the  reasons  that  may  be  assigned  for  the  lack  of  progress  in 
PsychicalResearchand  spiritualistic  problems  of  which  Professor  Sidgwick 
complains  is  in  all  probability  that  the  greater  part  of  the  investigations 
have  been  carried  on  by  amateurs  rather  than  by  'professionals,'  by  those 
for  whom  the  work  was  rather  an  avocation  than  a  special  calling.  Thus 
the  Seybert  Commission,  as  the  report  states,  was  made  up  of  men  whose 
days  were  "already  filled  with  duties  which  cannot  be  laid  aside  and  who 
are,  therefore,  able  to  devote  but  a  small  portion  of  their  time  to  these 
investigations."  This  condition  is  reflected  in  a  great  many  of  the  pub- 
lications on  Psychical  Research.  The  writers  have  taken  up  the  investi- 
gation in  the  spare  hours  of  the  day  or  the  spare  months  of  the  year,  and, 
considering  the  complexity  and  elusiveness  of  the  phenomena  involved,  it 
is  small  wonder  that  progress  has  not  been  more  marked.  Closely  allied 
with  this  is  another  factor  which  has  been  of  no  advantage  to  Psychical 
Research,  either  as  regards  its  advancement  or  its  standing  in  the  eyes  of 
the  scientific  world,  and  that  is  the  factor  of  attributing  to  amateurs  in 
psychical  investigations  the  like  authority  which  they  enjoy  in  their 
chosen  profession.  It  must  be  said  with  the  utmost  frankness  that  the 
mantle  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge's  great  reputation  as  a  physicist  cannot  be 
stretched  to  cover  his  work  in  Psychical  Research  and  it  is  doubtful  if  Sir 
William  Crooke's  authority  as  a  chemist  has  perceptibly  swayed  the  minds 
of  his  colleagues  in  chemistry  towards  spiritualistic  belief.  Obviously, 
what  is  necessary  for  the  advance  of  Psychical  Research  in  the  eyes  of  the 
scientific  world  is  precisely  what  all  other  kinds  of  scientific  work  de- 
mand ;   that  is,  the  undivided  time  and  attention  of  investigators  possess- 

1  Most  of  the  books  purchased  with  the  funds  are  placed  on  the  shelves  of  the 
general  library.  The  'apports'  are  kept  in  'display'  cases  in  a  special  room  adjoining 
the  laboratory.  A  plan  of  the  laboratory  for  Psychical  Research  will  be  found  at 
the  end  of  this  Introduction  (see    Plate  I,  p.  xxiv). 


Xxii  INTRODUCTION 

ing  a  special  training  for  their  work.  In  this  field,  for  example,  it  would 
mean  special  extensive  training  in  the  psychology  of  motor  automatisms 
and  of  subliminal  impressions,  in  the  ideational  and  affective  processes 
underlying  belief  and  conviction,  in  illusions  of  perception  and  the  value 
of  evidence.  Through  the  endowment  of  Mr.  Stanford  this  university 
was  placed  in  a  position  to  fulfill  these  conditions  and  to  realize  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge's  wishes  expressed  years  ago,  for  "a  laboratory  with  special  ap- 
pliances." The  selection  of  the  incumbent  of  the  fellowship  was  a  matter 
of  no  less  importance  than  the  facilities  for  work,  and  after  diligent  in- 
quiry into  the  qualifications  of  men  eligible  for  the  position,  the  choice 
was  made  of  Dr.  J.  E.  Coover, — a  well-trained  and  able  psychologist  and 
a  mature  man  of  highly  judicial  temperament.  To  dignify  the  .fellowship 
in  the  regard  of  the  university  world,  the  Trustees  conferred  on  Dr. 
Coover  the  rank  of  Assistant  Professor.  The  investigations  in  this 
volume  made  by  Dr.  Coover,  and  the  vast  mass  of  data  gathered  by  him 
are  an  index,  or  at  least  a  partial  index,  of  his  unflagging  devotion  to  the 
work.  I  say  partial  index  as  the  time  taken  for  the  investigation  of 
mediums  in  San  Francisco  was  out  of  proportion  to  the  amount  of  data 
collected.  Too  frequently  these  trips  were  barren  of  all  results,  the  in- 
vestigator having  spent  hours  in  the  dark  awaiting  manifestations  which 
either  wholly  failed  to  appear  or  appeared  but  feebly  and  infrequently. 

In  selecting  problems  for  investigation  the  logical  postulate  of  sim- 
plicity was  given  great  weight  and  for  this  reason  "The  Feeling  of  Being 
Stared  At"  was  the  first  to  be  chosen.  For  a  belief  in  the  efficacy  of  this 
feeling  is  wide-spread  among  the  students,  it  is  a  subject  that  admits  of 
easy  experimentation,  and,  what  is  highly  important,  it  is  directly  con- 
nected with  the  general  problem  of  telepathy.  A  further  postulate  of  the 
work  was  to  shape  the  early  investigations  to  the  material  in  hand, — in 
this  case  the  numerous  students  taking  work  in  psychology.  Through 
them  there  was  given  an  opportunity  for  statistical  studies  in  telepathy 
along  thej lines  laid  down  by  the  English  Society  for  Psychical  Research, 
and  in  addition  there  was  always  the  chance  in  dealing  with  a  large  num- 
ber of  individuals  of  discovering  someone  unusually  gifted  with  tele- 
pathic powers. 

Other  investigations  which  could  be  conducted  in  situ  were  on  prob- 
lems of  subliminal  activity,  in  mental  habits  or  bias  in  forming  judg- 
ments, and  on  the  implications  of  spoken  words  (sound  assimilation)  all 
of  which  form  necessary  prolegomena  to  the  clear  understanding  of  spir- 
itualistic manifestations. 

In  view  of  the  mass  of  work  in  evidence  in  the  pages  of  this  report 
it  will  be  readilv  understood  that  time  was  lacking  to  go  deeply  into  the 


INTRODUCTION  XX111 

subject  of  automatic  activities,  of  automatic  writing  or  speaking.  The 
investigation  of  'sensitives'  or  mediums  was  taken  up  after  considerable 
experience  in  methods  and  procedure  in  testing  psychical  manifestations 
with  students.  The  writer  shares  Professor  Sir  W.  F.  Barrett's  distrust 
of  professional  or  paid  mediums  and  of  working  in  the  dark,  but  Dr. 
Coover  undertook  investigations  of  this  kind  upon  a  guarantee  of  the 
good  faith  of  the  'sensitives'  by  the  California  Psychical  Research 
Society.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  the  'sensitives'  felt  unable  to  come  to 
the  University  to  develop  their  manifestations  where  they  were  best  fitted 
to  be  tested  and  although  a  very  cordial  entente  exists  between  Dr.  Coover 
and  the  California  Psychical  Research  Society  in  carrying  out  his  inves- 
tigations, owing  to  the  frequent  indisposition  of  the  'sensitives,'  the  find- 
ings of  this  part  of  the  report  are  more  scanty  than  could  be  wished. 

Somewhere  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  has  raised  the  question  of  the  advis- 
ability of  investigating  "that  of  which  we  are  sure."  "Why  conduct  ex- 
periments in  hypnotism  or  telepathy?"  to  which  he  answers  that  "Belief 
is  both  the  prelude  to  and  the  outcome  of  knowledge"  and  further  "If  a 
fact  or  a  theory  has  had  a  prima  facie  case  made  out  for  it,  subsequent 
investigation  is  necessary  to  examine  and  defend  it." 

Now  so  far  as  the  matters  of  which  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  speaks  are 
accessible  to  scientific  investigation,  no  one  would  venture  to  demur  to 
these  statements.  But  the  more  intimate  matters  of  religious  faith  the 
writer  does  not  feel  are  accessible  to  experimentation.  As  to  many 
phenomena  which  are  often  regarded  as  supernormal,  the  scientific  world 
has  no  doubt  but  that  with  patient  and  impartial  investigation  they  will 
ultimately  be  brought  within  the  circle  of  the  general  laws  of  Psychology 
as  has  been  the  case  with  the  once  baffling  phenomena  of  Hypnotism. 
But  for  the  deeper-seated  convictions  of  personal  religion,  scientific  in- 
vestigation is  out  of  place. 

In  establishing  the  fellowship  for  Psychical  Research  Mr.  Stanford 
has  made  a  substantial  contribution  toward  delimiting  the  borders  of 
these  two  regions  of  human  experience,  and  in  the  matter  presented  in 
this  volume  the  writer  feels  that  a  substantial  contribution  has  been  made 
to  that  side  of  Psychical  Research  which  is  accessible  to  scientific  investi- 
gation. 

Frank  Angell. 
Stanford  University, 
June  i.  1917. 


INTRODUCTION 


EXPERIMENTS  IN  PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH 


PART    I. 
THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE. 


It  is  an  obvious  fact,  but  it  is  nevertheless  a  fact 
which  we  must  repeat  as  often  as  possible,  that  in  no 
way  can  psychical  research  be  better  aided  than  by  con- 
stant and  varied  experiments  on  Thought-Transference 
in  every  form. — Frederic  W.  H.  Myers:  Proceedings 
S.P.R.,  1884,  2:217. 

Upon  one  other  interest  1  have  not  yet  touched — to 
me  the  weightiest  and  the  farthest  reaching  of  all. 

No  incident  in  my  scientific  career  is  more  widely 
known  than  the  part  I  took  many  years  ago  in  certain 
psychic  researches.  Thirty  years  have  passed  since  I 
published  an  account  of  experiments  tending  to  show 
that  outside  our  scientific  knowledge  there  exists  a 
Force  exercised  by  intelligence  differing  from  the  ordi- 
nary intelligence  common  to  mortals.  ...  I  think  I  see 
a  little  farther  now.  .  .  .  And  were  I  now  introducing 
for  the  first  time  these  inquiries  to  the  world  of  sci- 
ence I  should  choose  a  starting-point  different  from 
that  of  old.  It  would  be  well  to  begin  with  telepathy; 
with  the  fundamental  law.  as  I  believe  it  to  be,  that 
thoughts  and  images  may  be  transferred  from  one 
mind  to  another  without  the  agency  of  the  recognized 
organs  of  sense — that  knowledge  may  enter  the  human 
mind  without  being  communicated  in  any  hitherto 
known  or  recognized  ways. — Sir  William  Crookes,  in 
The  Presidential  Address,  delivered  to  the  British.  As- 
sociation for  the  Advancement  of  Science,  at  Bristol, 
September  1898,   (Proceedings  S.  P.  /?..   14:2-3). 


EXPERIMENTS  IN  PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH 

PART  I. 
THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE. 


The  Present  Importance  of  the  Problem. 

An  examination  of  the  literature  of  Psychical  Research  reveals  the 
paramount  importance  of  Telepathy,  or  Thought-Transference,1  among 
all  the  various  kinds  of  phenomena  which  fall  within  its  field.  Not  only 
have  the  principal  psychical  research  societies  given  the  investigation  of 
this  process  a  prominent  place  in  their  formally  announced  aims  of  or- 
ganization and  given  it  their  chief  attention  during  the  earlier  years  of 
their  work,  but  at  the  present  time,  when  both  the  English  and  the 
American  societies  are  seeking  indisputable  evidence  for  the  survival 
of  human  personality  beyond  bodily  death,  this  process  threatens  to  cut 
to  the  root  of  their  proof. 

The  evidence  regarded  by  the  leaders  in  psychical  research  as  the    \ 
most  promising  for  proof  of  survival  lies  in  the  content  of  the  utter-     . 
ances    (spoken,  written  or  signaled)    proceeding  from  an  "automatist"  / 
or  a  "psychic,"  usually  entranced.    That  it  cannot  be  regarded  as  merely 
normal  phenomena  is  most  positively  affirmed  by  those  who  have  exam- 
ined it  with  the  greatest  care ;   and  some  proponents  of  its  extra-normal 
character  are  celebrated  psychologists,   whose  professional  and  critical 
judgment  applies  precisely  to  the  normal  and  abnormal  behavior  of  the 
mind. 

Professor  James  has  several  times  given  voice  to  his  position.  As 
early  as  1890  he  wrote  concerning  Mrs.  Piper's  "messages": 

My  later  knowledge  of  her  sittings  and  personal  acquaintance  with  her  has 
led  me  .  .  .  .to  believe  that  she  has  supernormal  powers,     (p.  652). 


1  Although  these  terms  are  sometimes  assigned  different  meanings,  they  have 
not  been  shown  to  be  different  kinds  of  functions,  and  for  our  purpose  they  may 
be  regarded  as  synonymous,  meaning  an  influence  of  one  mind  upon  another  other- 
wise than  through  the  recognized  s?nsory  channels ;  the  influence  may  take  the 
form  of  a  sensation,  an  idea,  a  thought,  a  desire,  an  emotion,  or  any  other  assign- 
able content  of  consciousness. 

3 


4  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

And  in  another  paragraph: 

Taking  everything  that  I  know  of  Mrs.  Piper  into  account,  the  result  is  to 
make  me  feel  as  absolutely  certain  as  I  am  of  any  personal  fact  in  the  world  that 
she  knows  things  in  her  trances  which  she  cannot  possibly  have  heard  in  her  wak- 
ing state,     (pp.  658-9 ).2 

In  1896: 

In  the  trances  of  this  medium,  I  cannot  resist  the  conviction  that  knowledge 
appears  which  she  has  never  gained  by  the  ordinary  waking  use  of  her  eyes  and 
ears  and  wits.     (p.  319).' 

And  in  1909,  when  summing  up  his  "Final  Impressions"  after  twenty- 
five  years'  experience  in  psychical  research,  concerning  automatic  utter- 
ances he  wrote : 

When  imposture  has  been  checked  off  as  far  as  possible,  when  chance  coin- 
cidence has  been  allowed  for,  when  opportunities  for  normal  knowledge  on  the 
part  of  the  subject  have  been  noted,  and  skill  in  "fishing"  and  following  clues  un- 
wittingly furnished  by  the  voice  or  face  of  bystanders  have  been  counted  in,  those 
who  have  the  fullest  acquaintance  with  the  phenomena  admit  that  in  good  me- 
diums there  is  a  residuum  of  knowledge  displayed  that  can  only  be  called  super- 
normal :  the  medium  taps  some  source  of  information  not  open  to  ordinary  peo- 
ple. Myers  used  the  word  "telepathy"  to  indicate  that  the  sitter's  own  thoughts 
or  feelings  may  be  thus  directly  tapped,     (pp.  188-9). 

I  wish  to  go  on  record  for  the  presence,  in  the  midst  of  all  the  humbug,  of 
really  supernormal  knowledge,   [with  strong  mediums],     (p.  200).* 

Professor  Flournoy,  Professor  of  Psychology  in  the  University  of 

Geneva,  in  1900,  said: 

Taking  everything  into  consideration,  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  Mile. 
Smith,  in  truth,  possesses  real  phenomena  of  clairvoyance,  not,  however,  passing 
beyond  the  possible  limits  of  telepathy  ...     (p.  397). 6 

Podmore,  one  of  the  most  conservative  writers,  and  perhaps  the 
most  critical  student,  in  the  English  Society,  in  1910,  said : 

The  automatists  unquestionably  show  that  they  possess  information  which 
could  not  have  reached  their  consciousness  by  normal  means,  and  it  is  in  tracing 
this  information  to  its  source  that  the  main  interest  of  the  inquiry  and  the  main 
burden  of  proof  will  be  found,     (p.  302).* 


2  James :    A  record  of  observations  of  certain  phenomena  of  tranee.    Proceed- 
ings S.  P.  R.,  1890,  6:651-659. 

3  James :     The  Will  to  Believe.     New  York,  1899. 

*  James  :     Memories  and  Studies.     New  York,  191 1. 

6  Flournoy,  Th. :     From  India  to  the  Planet  Mars,  a  study  of  a  case  of  som- 
nambulism with  glossolalia.     (tr.  Vermilye).     New  York,  C1900. 
6  Podmore,  Frank:     The  Newer  Spiritualism.     London,  1910. 


THE  PRESENT   IMPORTANCE   OF  THE   PROBLEM 


The  Role  of  Telepathy  as  an  Alternative  Hypothesis  to  Spirit 
Communication. 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  in  his  Presidential  Address  to  the  English  So- 
ciety for  Psychical  Research,  in  1902,  pointed  out  the  alternate  hy- 
potheses for  "trance  lucidity  and  clairvoyance"  as  (1)  Telepathy  from 
the  living,  and  (2)  Communication  from  the  departed;7  and  in  1913  he 
restated  his  conviction  that  telepathy  serves  as  an  hypothetical  explana- 
tion for  a  multiplicity  of  phenomena, — "it  is  the  minimum  hypothesis."  8 

A  classification  of  the  factors  involved  in  trance  utterances  was  of- 
fered by  Frederick  W.  H.  Myers  :9 

(a)  Dreamlike  and  confused  talk  from  the  subliminal  self, 

(b)  Facts  implying  the  perception  of  events  occurring  at  a  distance — clair- 
voyance, 

(c)  Facts  existing  in  the  minds  of  the  sitters, 

(rf)  Facts  not  known  to  sitters  but  which  would  have  been  known  to  the  de- 
parted persons. 

And  in  the  same  place  he  affirms : 

I  believe,  then,  that  I  have  good  reason  for  ascribing  many  of  these  mes- 
sages to  definite  surviving  personalities,  known  while  on  earth  to  friends  of  mine 
whose  presence  with  Mrs.  Thompson  has  evoked  the  messages,  or  to  myself.  I 
believe  that  most  of  these  messages  are  uttered  through  Mrs.  Thompson's  organ- 
ism by  spirits  who  for  the  time  inform  or  "possess"  that  organism ;  and  that  some 
are  received  by  her  spirit  in  the  unseen  world,  directly  from  other  spirits,  and 
are  then  partially  remembered,  so  that  the  sensitive  can  record  them  on  emerging 
from  the  ecstatic  state,     (p.  73)- 

The  seriousness  of  telepathy  as  an  alternative  hypothesis  is  stated 
by  N.  W.  Thomas,  Professor  Flournoy,  and  Professor  Hyslop,  among 
others.    Thomas : 

The  evidence  for  spiritualism  .  .  .  suffers  ...  so  long  as  it  is  conceivable, 
if  perhaps  improbable,  that  all  the  facts  on  which  spiritualists  rely,  can  be  ex- 
plained away  by  a  telepathic  hypothesis,  (p.  178).  .  .  .  The  extent  of  the  evi- 
dence for  spiritualism  must  remain  a  matter  of  doubt,  and  be  liable  to  reduction 
in  proportion  as  we  can  justly  ascribe  to  telepathy  the  supercognitive  phenomena 
of  trance  mediumship.     (pp.  178-9). 10 

'Lodge,  Sir  Oliver:    President's  address.    Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  1902,  17:38. 
8  Lodge :    Telepathy  as  a  fact  of  experience.    Bedrock,  1913,  2 :  57  ff. 
'Myers,  F.  W.  H. :    On  the  trance-phenomena  of  Mrs.  Thompson.    Proceed- 
ings S.P.R.,  1902,  17:67-74. 

10  Thomas    Northcote  W. :    Thought  Transference.    London,  1905. 


6  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

Flournoy : 

Certain  it  is  that  telepathy  takes  away  all  evidential  value  from  certain  com- 
munications received  which  might  otherwise  be  thought  to  be  spiritistic  in  char- 
acter,    (p.  209)." 

Hyslop : 

The  crucial  test  of  spiritism,  in  this  and  all  other  cases,  must  turn  upon  the 
question  of  telepathy  to  furnish  the  data  upon  which  any  secondary  consciousness 
has  to  work.12 

This  dilemma  may  be  more  adequately  appreciated  by  the  reader 
after  he  gets  a  closer  view  of  available  illustrations  in  the  discussions 
offered  by  the  leaders  in  psychical  research  by  way  of  interpretation  of 
trance  and  other  automatic  communications.  The  alleged  super-normal 
character  of  these  communications  may  be  conceived  to  vary  in  a 
graded  series  from  (1)  the  simplest  case  of  telepathic  reproduction  of 
the  sitter's  present  thought,  through  (2)  similar  reproduction  of  the 
sitter's  forgotten  memories  or  unnoticed  sensory  impressions,  (3)  simi- 
lar reproduction  of  the  experience  of  some  third  living  person  ("tele- 
pathic a  trois"),  and  (4)  the  reproduction  of  the  life  memories  of  de- 
ceased persons,  to  (5)  more  or  less  direct  communication  from  persist- 
ing and  still  active  discarnate  personalities.  The  representative  discus- 
sions to  be  reviewed,  although  they  may  not  be  conveniently  grouped  in 
a  corresponding  series,  apply  to  one  or  more  of  the  members  of 
the  series. 

First,  The  reproduction  of  the  sitter's  conscious  or  subliminal  ex- 
perience : 

Professor  James  says : 

"Telepathy"  seems  fairly  established  as  a  fact,  though  its  frequency  is  still 
questionable :  .  .  .  Our  rule  of  presumption  should  lead  us,  then,  to  deny 
spirits  and  to  explain  the  Piper-phenomena  by  a  mixture  of  fraud,  subconscious 
personation,  lucky  accident,  and  telepathy,  whenever  such  an  explanation  remains 
possible,     (p.  34). 

[Yet,]  the  personation,  fishing,  guessing,  using  lucky  hits,  etc.,  in  Mrs.  Piper, 
may  be,  as  it  were,  the  mechanical  means  by  which  "spirits"  succeed  in  making  her 
living  organism  express  their  thought,  however  imperfectly,     (p.  35). 

I  myself  can  perfectly  imagine  spirit-agency,  and  I  find  my  mind  vacillating 
about  it  curiously,     (p.  35)" 


11  Flournoy,  Theodore:  Spiritism  and  Psychology,  (tr.  Carrington).  Lon- 
don, 1911. 

"  Hyslop :  A  further  record  of  observations  of  certain  trance  phenomena. 
Proceedings  S.  P.  R-,  1901,  16:292. 

13  James  :  Report  on  Mrs.  Piper's  Hodgson-control.  Proceedings  S.  P.  R., 
1909,  23:  2-121. 


THE  PRESENT   IMPORTANCE  OF   THE   PROBLEM  7 

Professor  Flournoy  says: 

All  the  facts  of  lucidity  (clairvoyance,  second  sight,  etc.)  which  are  attrib- 
uted to  Mile.  Smith  may  be  explained  by  telepathic  impressions  proceeding  from 
living  persons,     (p.  396)."  . 

Dr.  Hodgson,  the  skilled  researcher,  sent  by  the  English  S.  P.  P. 
to  investigate  the  "'phenomena"  of  Mrs.  Piper  in  America,  made  a  vo- 
luminous report  in  1892,  in  which  he  said: 

Putting  aside  all  the  facts  which  can  be  explained  by  direct  thought-trans- 
ference from  the  sitter,  and  considering  simply  the  information  given  which  was 
not  known  to  the  sitter  and  which  purports  to  come  from  "deceased"  persons,  but 
which  was  known  to,  and  afterwards  verified  by,  distant  living  persons, — is  there 
sufficient  ground  for  concluding  that  Phinuit  is  in  direct  communication  with 
"deceased"  persons,  and  that  he  is  a  deceased  person  himself  as  he  alleges?  I 
think  that  the  evidence  here  presented,  together  with  that  previously  published,  is 
very  far  from  sufficient  to  establish  any  such  conclusion. 

[The  most  satisfactory  hypothesis  seems  to  be  that  in  her  automatic  trance] 
a  secondary  personality  of  Mrs.  Piper  either  erroneously  believes  itself  to  be,  or 
consciously  and  falsely  pretends  to  be,  the  "spirit"  of  a  deceased  human  being, 
Phinuit.     (p.  57)-IS 

But  in  a  later  report,  which  included  evidences  of  the  continued  exist- 
ence of  the  late  "George  Pelham,"  he  concluded: 

.  .  .  Many  of  what  were  once  difficulties  to  myself  in  the  way  of  believing 
that  these  phenomena  were  the  result  of  the  agency  of  "deceased"  persons,  have 
been  removed  by  the  fuller  evidence  presented  by  [the  later  control]  G.  P.  and 
other  communicators  acting  directly,  (p.  405).  .  .  .  What  my  future  beliefs 
may  be,  I  do  not  know.  Rontgen  suggested  that  certain  special  effects  produced  in 
his  famous  experiments  were  due  to  rays  whose  vibrations  were  longitudinal  to  the 
path  of  propagation,  but  later  experiments  have  tended  to  show  that  they  are  due 
to  vibrations  of  the  same  general  character  as  those  with  which  we  were 
familiar,  but  of  a  higher  order  of  frequency.  And  it  may  be  that  further  experi- 
ment in  the  lines  of  investigation  before  us  may  lead  me  to  change  my  view;  but 
at  the  present  time  I  cannot  profess  to  have  any  doubt  but  that  the  chief  "com- 
municators," to  whom  I  have  referred  in  the  foregoing  pages,  are  veritably  the 
personalities  that  they  claim  to  be,  that  they  have  survived  the  change  we  call 
death,  and  that  they  have  directly  communicated  with  us  whom  we  call  living, 
through  Mrs.  Piper's  entranced  organism,     (pp.  405-6). 1(J 


14  Flournoy,  Th. :     From  India  to  the  Planet  Mars,  a  study  of  a  case  of  som- 
nambulism with  glossolalia.     (tr.  Vermilye).     New  York,  C1900. 

15  Hodgson,    Richard :      A    record    of   observations    of   certain   phenomena   of 
trance.     Proceedings  S.P.R.,  1892,  8:  1-167. 

16  Hodgson,  Richard :     A  further  record  of  observations  of  certain  phenomena 
of  trance.    Proceedings  S.P.R.,  1897-8,  13:284-582. 


0  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

Concerning  later  Piper  sittings,  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  in  1909,  said : 

On  the  whole,  they  tend  to  render  certain  the  existence  of  some  outside  in- 
telligence or  control,  distinct  from  consciousness,  and  as  far  as  I  can  judge  from 
the  subconsciousness  also,  of  Mrs.  Piper  or  other  medium.  ...  I  feel  that  we 
are  in  secondary  or  tertiary  touch — at  least  occasionally — with  some  stratum  of  the 
surviving  personality  of  the  individuals  who  are  represented  as  sending  messages. 
(p.  282)." 

And  concerning  the  Mrs.  Grove  case,  he  wrote : 

This  series,  for  several  reasons,  must  be  regarded  as  the  most  strictly  evi- 
dential of  all ;  and  a  decided  unity  of  character  and  of  message  is  preserved,  no 
matter  through  what  medium  the  communication  comes.  But  the  hypothesis  of 
telepathy  from  the  sitter,  if  stretched  sufficiently,  will  cover  all  the  reported  por- 
tions ;  and  in  such  a  case  this  notion  constitutes  a  difficulty  which  can  hardly  be 
avoided.  At  the  same  time  I  must  say  that  I  find  this  hypothesis  not  very  prob- 
able,— it  does  not  at  all  satisfy  my  mind  as  an  explanation.  On  the  whole,  the 
surviving  and  communicating  intelligence  hypothesis  commends  itself  to  me  as  the 
most  likely,     (p.  283). 17 

Hyslop,  in  his  report  on  his  study  of  the  "phenomena"  of  Mrs.  Pi- 
per for  evidences  of  spirit  identity,  said: 

The  evidence  for  personal  identity  in  this  record  is  so  overwhelming,  that 
when  we  dismiss  fraud  from  consideration  and  reckon  the  mistakes  and  confusions 
in  the  favor  of  spiritism  instead  of  difficulties  and  objections,  we  should  not  natur- 
ally suspect  telepathy  as  the  most  probable  hypothesis  in  the  case.  The  specter 
which  that  doctrine  raises  is  of  the  Society's  own  making  in  phenomena  wholly 
outside  the  field  I  am  considering  here,  and  obtains  its  cogency  far  more  from  our 
mental  habits  than  from  the  facts  of  this  record,     (p.  242). 18 

Podmore,  in  1903,  wrote: 

Prior  to  the  publication,  in  1898,  of  Dr.  Hodgson's  monumental  report  on 
Mrs.  Piper's  later  trances  (Proceedings  S.P.R.,  vol.  13),  I  had  held  that  her  utter- 
ances were  amongst  the  strongest  evidences  which  we  possessed  for  telepathy,  or  at 
least  for  some  supernormal  faculty  of  acquiring  information  outside  the  possible 
radius  of  the  senses;  on  the  other  hand,  it  seemed  to  me  that  the  indications  of 
the  action  of  discarnate  spirits  were  so  slight  and  shadowy  as  to  be  hardly  worth 
taking  into  account.  After  some  conversations  with  Dr.  Hodgson  during  his  visit 
to  this  country  in  1897,  and  careful  study  of  the  Report  issued  shortly  afterwards, 

1  inclined  to  the  opinion  that  the  case  of  spirit  intercourse  was  at  any  rate  strong 
enough  to  be  accepted  as  a  provisional  hypothesis.     .     .     .    The  effect  of    .     .    . 


17  Lodge,  Sir  Oliver :    Report  on  some  trance  communications  received  through 
Mrs.  Piper.    Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  23 :  127-285. 

18  Hyslop,  James   H. :     A   further   record   of   observations   of  certain   trance 
phenomena.    Proceedings  S.P.R.,  1901,  16:4-648. 


THE  PRESENT   IMPORTANCE   OF  THE   PROBLEM  V 

[Professor  Hyslop's]  report  on  my  mind  has  been  not  merely  to  discredit  altogether 
the  spirit  hypothesis  so  far  as  this  particular  series  of  seances  is  concerned,  but 
restrospectively  to  cast  some  shadow  of  doubt  on  the  results  previously  recorded 
by  Dr.  Hodgson,     (p.  375) -19 

In  1908: 

On  the  one  hand,  it  seems  clear  that  the  trance  consciousness  of  Mrs.  Piper, 
as  of  all  other  so-called  mediums,  is  apt  on  very  small  provocation  to  personify 
itself,  and  that  the  personification  may  be  shaped  by  the  suggestions  of  those  pres- 
ent. In  Mrs.  Piper's  case  we  have  ground  for  assuming  that  such  suggestions  may 
often  be  conveyed  telepathically ;  in  short,  that  the  dramatic  personalities  of  the 
so-called  controls  may  actually  be  built  up  out  of  the  material  unconsciously  sup- 
plied by  the  sitters,  and  that  the  intimate  personal  details  revealed  in  the  trance 
utterances  may  be  telepathically  filched  from  the  same  source.  The  limitations  of 
the  knowledge  displayed,  and  the  occasional  disingenuousness,  forbid  us  to  accept 
these  communications  as  authentic  and  unembarrassed  messages  from  the  dead, 
(p.  329) -20 

And  in  1910,  concerning  the  phenomena  of  the  same  psychic  he  wrote: 

The  change  in  the  character  of  the  recent  sittings  and  the  remarkable  and 
life-like  development  of  some  of  the  trance  personalities  is,  no  doubt,  consistent 
with  the  hypothesis  of  spirit  control.  But  it  would  not  be  safe  to  build  much  upon 
such  an  argument.  .  .  .  The  only  test  that  we  can  apply  to  these  earlier  sittings 
lies  in  the  substance  of  the  communications  themselves.  The  great  bulk  of  the  in- 
formation given  was,  of  course,  within  the  knowledge  of  the  sitter,  and,  apart  from 
its  dramatic  form,  there  is  no  ground  for  assuming  any  other  source  than  telepathy 
from  his  mind.     (p.  305). 21 

Flournoy  wrote : 

We  might  say  that  telepathy  between  the  living— particularly  between  the 
medium  and  members  of  a  spiritistic  group— is  one  of  these  laws,  although  still 
vague  as  to  its  necessary  conditions.  The  only  point  which  appears  to  me  worthy 
of  being  raised,  because  it  is  so  often  observed,  is  that  the  ideas  of  the  sitters  which 
"have  the  greatest  chance  of  being  transmitted  to  the  medium  are  those  in  a  sort  of 
nascent  or  evanescent  condition,  upon  the  threshold  between  consciousness  and 
subconsciousness,  and  passing  from  one  to  the  other,     (pp.  211-212). 

Many  people  going  to  consult  a  medium  are  astonished  that  the  medium  tells 
them  nothing  that  they  are  thinking  about,  but  reveals  to  them  details  of  which 
they  did  not  dream.  ...  The  psychic  processes  about  to  blossom  or  to  fade 
away  in  the  penumbra  of  consciousness  have   more  power  of  radiating  to  other 


is  Podmore,  Frank :     On  Professor  Hyslop's  Report  on  his  sittings  with  Mrs. 
Piper.    Proceeedings  S.P.R.,  1903.  17:374-388. 

20  Podmore :    The  Naturalization  of  the  Supernatural.    New  York,  1008. 

21  Podmore :    The  Newer  Spiritualism.    London,  1910. 


10  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

brains  than  those  which  are  partly  immovable — either  in  the  foreground  of  atten- 
tion or  in  the  lowest  stratum  of  the  subconsciousness,     (p.  212). 22 

This  principle  of  direct  communication  between  minds  is  curiously 
extended  to  unsuspected  lengths,  so  firmly  has  it  taken  hold  of  the  pub- 
lic mind :  Maeterlinck  23  attributed  the  success  of  the  Elberfeld  horses 
in  their  performances  alleged  to  express  a  high  degree  of  intelligence, 
to  subliminal  telepathic  transference  of  the  answers  to  problems  from 
the  human  to  the  equine  mind.     F.  C.  S.  Schiller  remarking  this,  says: 

To  test  the  telepathic  hypothesis  he  tried  a  number  of  experiments,  of  which 
the  answers  were  not  known  to  him  or  any  one  present,  and  found  that  the  horses 
answered  as  correctly  as  when  the  answers  were  known.  .  .  .  [He]  betakes 
himself  to  the  suggestion  that  some  animals,  e.  g.,  horses,  dogs,  and  cats  (but  not 
elephants  and  monkeys),  are  natural  "psychics,"  and  so  can  tap  subliminally  what 
Professor  James  called  a  great  "cosmic  reservoir,"  in  which  all  knowledge  is  con- 
served. ...  It  will  be  interesting,  however,  to  see  whether  experimental  con- 
firmation of  this  mystical  hypothesis  can  be  obtained,  and  also  whether  any  of  the 
many  philosophers  who  profess  to  hold  it  on  theoretic  grounds  will  take  any  steps 
to  verify  it  practically.24 

^Second,  The  reproduction  of  the  experience  of  some  third  living 
son   (telepathie  a  trots). 

Andrew  Lang,  in  1900,  wrote: 

I  see  no  reason  for  the  hypothesis  that  Mrs.  Piper  ever  receives  telepathic 
communications  from  the  dead.  Has  she  ever  communicated  a  single  thing  that 
was  known  to  a  dead  person,  but  to  no  living  man  or  woman?  Such  are  my 
doubts,     (p.  52) -25 

And  Frank  Podmore,  in  1910: 

The  analysis  of  these  cases  where  information  unknown  to  the  sitter  was 
given  by  the  trance  intelligence  scarcely  adds  strength  to  the  hypothesis  of  spirit 
communication.  In  every  case  the  information  given  was,  or  may  have  been, 
within  the  knowledge  of  some  living  mind.  In  many  cases  all  the  circumstances 
point  to  some  form  of  telepathy  between  the  distant  agent  and  the  trance  intelli- 
gence, mediated,  as  it  would  seem  in  all  cases,  by  the  presence  of  a  common  ac- 
quaintance in  the  person  of  the  sitter,     (p.  311). 

The  trance  personalities,  then,  have  never  told  us  anything  which  was  not 


22  Flournoy,  Theodore:     Spiritism  and   Psychology,      (tr.   Carrington).     Lon- 
don, 1911. 

23  Neue  Rundschau,  June  1914. 

24  Journal  S.P.R.,  July  1914,  16:271-2. 

25  Lang,  Andrew:    Discussion  of  the  trance  phenomena  of  Mrs.  Piper.     III. — 
Reflections  on  Mrs.   Piper  and  telepathy.     Proceedings  S.P.R.,   1900-01,  15:39-52. 


THE  PRESENT   IMPORTANCE  OF   THE   PROBLEM  11 

possibly,  scarcely  anything  which  was  not  probably,  within  the  knowledge  of  some 
living  person,     (p.  312). 26 

Third,  The  reproduction  of  the  same  or  similar  ideas  through  two 
or  more  independent  automatists,  purporting  to  be  communications  from 
the  same  discarnate  personality,   (cross-correspondences,  simple). 

Miss  Alice  Johnson  observes  : 

If  we  simply  find  the  same  idea  expressed — even  in  different  forms — by  both 
[independent  automatists]  ...  it  may  .  .  .  most  easily  be  explained  by  telepathy 
between  them.     (p.  37S)-27 

And  Professor  A.  C.  Pigou  suggests  28  that  telepathic  capacity  of 
the  order  illustrated  by  the  experiments  of  the  Misses  Miles  and  Rams- 
den  29  (telepathy  at  a  distance)  is  adequate  to  explain  the  single  corre- 
spondences in  the  communications  of  independent  psychics. 

Fourth,  The  reproduction  through  two  or  more  independent  autom- 
atists of  ideas  the  relation  of  which  is  known  only  to  the  communicat- 
ing intelligence,  presumably  a  discarnate  personality,  and  can  be  found 
by  the  researchers  only  after  painstaking  study  and  search  (cross-cor- 
respondences, complementary). 

Miss  Johnson  describes  this  phenomenon : 

What  we  get  is  a  fragmentary  utterance  in  one  script,  which  seems  to  have 
no  particular  point  or  meaning,  and  another  fragmentary  utterance  in  the  other, 
of  an  equally  pointless  character :  but  when  we  put  the  two  together,  we  see  that 
they  supplement  one  another,  and  that  there  is  apparently  one  coherent  idea  under- 
lying both,  but  only  partially  expressed  in  each.  .  .  .  It  is  .  .  .  difficult  to  suppose 
that  the  telepathic  perception  of  one  fragment  could  lead  to  the  production  of 
another  fragment  which  can  only,  after  careful  comparison,  be  seen  to  be  related 
to  the  first,     (p.  375)- 

[The  corresponding  statements  relate]  to  events  in  the  present  which,  to  all 
intents  and  purposes,  are  unknown  to  any  living  person,  since  the  meaning  and 
point  of  her  script  is  often  uncomprehended  by  each  automatist  until  the  solution 
is  found  through  putting  the  two  scripts  together,     (p.  377). 

It  was  not  the  automatists  that  detected  [this  new  experimental  procedure] 
.  .  .  but  a  student  of  the  scripts ;  it  has  every  appearance  of  being  an  element 
imported  from  outside ;  it  suggests  an  independent  invention,  an  active  intelli- 
gence constantly  at  work  in  the  present,  not  a  mere  echo  or  remnant  of  individ- 
ualities of  the  past.     (p.  377). 


26  Podmore,  Frank:    The  Newer  Spiritualism.     London,  1910. 

27  Johnson,  Alice :    On  the  automatic  writing  of  Mrs.  Holland.     Proceedings 
S.P.R.,  1909,  21:166-391. 

28  Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  23  :  292-3.  29  Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  21  :6o-93. 


12 


THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 


Perhaps  the  most  serious  practical  objection  to  the  hypothesis  that  the  con- 
trols invented  this  special  plan  of  cross-correspondences  would  be  that  it  might 
have  been  a  subliminal  invention  of  Mrs.  Verrall's,  since  it  is  on  her  script  that 
the  hypothesis  is  chiefly  based,  and  it  is  there  that  we  find  the  most  complete  ex- 
position of  it.  There  are,  however,  a  few  indications  of  it  in  Mrs.  Holland's 
script  also,  quite  independently  of  Mrs.  Verrall's.     (p.  389) .30 

Professor  Pigou  comments: 

All  the  characteristics  of  the  best  cross-correspondences  seem  to  me  to  be 
produced  in  this  experiment.  Since,  therefore,  there  are  strong  grounds  for  be- 
lieving that  the  agent  here  was  the  subliminal  consciousness  of  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Verrall,  or  of  both  together,  there  are  also  strong  grounds  for  believing  that  the 
manufacture  of  cross-correspondences  of  the  required  type  falls  within  the  com- 
pass of  incarnate  mind.  In  view  of  this  fact  I  conclude  that  the  occurrence  of 
these  correspondences  in  other  cases  does  not  make  probable  the  operation  of  any 
discarnate  mind.      (p.  302). 31 

Miss  Johnson  again  says : 

Are  we  to  suppose,  then,  that  the  unconscious  and  involuntary  telepathic  ef- 
forts of  Mrs.  Verrall  and  of  Mr.  Piddington,  acting  unconsciously,  involuntarily, 
and  telepathically  in  combination  with  each  other,  produced  the  whole  cross-cor- 
respondence?    (p.  255). 

.  .  .  There  are.  indeed,  two  or  three  items  which  some  of  the  automatists 
may  be  supposed  to  have  borrowed  telepathically  from  one  another.  .  .  .  But  look- 
ing at  the  scripts  as  a  whole,  we  find  an  extraordinary  variety  in  the  methods 
chosen  to  approach  the  same  idea.  ...  (p.  256).  It  appears  to  me,  in  short, 
that  many  of  the  items  of  this  cross-correspondence  afford  strong  evidence  of  the 
design  or  agency  of  some  intelligence  which  was  cognisant  of  the  whole  scheme, 
as  finally  revealed  .  .  .  and  it  seems  to  me  difficult  to  attribute  so  complete  a 
knowledge  of  it  to  the  subliminal  consciousness  either  of  Mrs.  Verrall  or  Mr. 
Piddington.     (p.  261  ).32 

And  after  still  further  study,  Miss  Johnson  observes: 

I  would  next  point  out  that,  while  the  cross-correspondences  between  the 
scripts  of  different  writers  seemed  at  first  to  consist  merely  of  verbal  similarities 
or  coincidences  of  topic,  further  study  showed  that  they  were  far  more  compli- 
cated and  elaborate  than  we  had  supposed,  involving  many  more  scripts  and  often 
several  different  subjects;  sometimes  including  items  of  literary  or  historical  in- 
terest   unknown   to   the   writers   whose   script   furnished   the    cross-correspondence 


30  Johnson,  Alice:  On  the  automatic  writing  of  Mrs.  Holland.  Proceedings 
S.P.R.,  1909,  21:166-391. 

81  Pigou,  Professor  A.  C. :  Psychical  research  and  survival  after  bodily 
death.    Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  1909,  23 :  286-303. 

32  Johnson,  Alice :  Second  report  on  Mrs.  Holland's  script.  Proceedings 
S.P.R,  1910,  24:201-263. 


THE  PRESENT   IMPORTANCE  OF  THE   PROBLEM  13 

and  characteristic  in  many  ways  of  the  supposed  "author,"  and  in  general  more 
and  more  difficult  to  explain  on  the  hypothesis  of  the  unaided  subliminal  powers 
of  the  writers,     (p.  ISS).33 

Podmore  writes : 

No  person  who  carefully  studies  the  records  would  think  it  possible  to  at- 
tribute all  these  numerous  and  well-attested  coincidences  to  fraudulent  design  or 
the  mere  chance  association  of  ideas.  If  we  reject,  for  the  present,  at  any  rate, 
the  explanation  suggested  by  many  of  the  utterances  themselves,  that  of  commu- 
nication from  the  dead,  we  must  seek  for  some  other  cause  adequate  to  the  ef- 
fects. There  remains  only  the  agency  which  has  been  provisionally  named  telep- 
athy. .  .  .  The  establishment  of  such  a  faculty,  if  only  as  the  vestige  of  a  prim- 
itive mode  of  sensibility,  now  superseded  by  articulate  speech,  would  surely  be  a 
result  worth  all  the  labor  spent  [in  this  field],     (p.  316). 

But  whatever  the  explanation  of  this  particular  series  of  coincidences  [Ver- 
rall-Frith-Holland-Piper  "The  Sevens  Incident"]  I  see  no  evidence  whatever  to 
justify  the  assumption,  even  provisionally,  of  a  directing  intelligence  other  than 
those  of  the  automatists  concerned.  It  would  appear,  on  the  contrary,  that  this 
case  has  important  bearings  upon  the  interpretation  of  the  evidence  as  a  whole. 
Not  only  does  it  vindicate,  in  the  least  equivocal  fashion,  the  action  of  telepathy 
from  the  living,  but  it  further  invalidates  by  anticipation  all  the  evidence  for  the 
agency  of  the  dead  which  might  have  been  derived  from  "posthumous"  letters, 
and  has  thus  deprived  us  of  what  would  have  seemed  an  important,  though  not, 
of  course,  a  crucial,  test.     (p.  276). 

In  fact,  the  investigators  themselves  now  recognize  that  the  primitive  theory 
of  possession,  the  theory  advocated  in  a  modified  form  by  Dr.  Hodgson  and  still 
held  by  most  Spiritualists,  can  no  longer  be  defended.  They  have  substituted  for 
it  a  theory  of  telepathic  interaction  between  the  mind  of  the  automatist  and  other 
minds,  of  the  living  or  of  the  dead.     (p.  298) ,34 

This  Dominating  Role  of  Telepathy  Challenged. 

But  this  dominating  role  of  the  hypothesis  of  telepathy  in  the  ex- 
planation of  tr-ance  utterances  has  not  been  uncontested,  and  that  from 
quite  diverse  quarters : 

First,  Telepathie  a  trois,  it  is  claimed,  has  not  been  proved.  Lodge, 
in  1902,  said: 

Returning  to  the  subject  of  trance-lucidity  generally,  I  wish  to  emphasize 
my  conviction  that  an  explanation  based  on  telepathy  as  a  vera  causa  can 
be  pressed  too  far.  Telepathy  is  the  one  ultra-normal  human  faculty  to  the  real- 
ity of  which  most  of  those  who  have  engaged  in  these  researches  are  prepared  to 
assent :  that  is,  to  assent  to  it  as  a  bare  fact,  a  summary  of  certain  observed  phe- 


33  Johnson,  Miss  Alice  :    A  reconstruction  of  some  "Concordant  Automatisms." 
Proceedings  S.P.R.,  1914,  27:1-156. 

34  Podmore,  Frank :    The   Newer   Spiritualism.     London,   1910. 


14  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

nomena ;  but  its  laws  are  unknown  and  its  scope  and  meaning  are  not  yet  appar- 
ent, (p.  39).  Until  we  can  answer  these  questions  ...  it  is  scarcely  possible  to 
regard  telepathy,  even  from  the  sitter,  as  a  legitimate  explanation  of  much  of  the 
clairvoyance  or  lucidity  noticed  in  trance  utterances.  It  may  have  to  be  assumed 
as  the  least  strained  explanation,  but  it  cannot  with  certainty  be  definitely  asserted 
to  be  the  correct  one,  even  when  it  would  easily  cover  the  facts ;  still  less  is  it 
permissible,  except  as  the  vaguest  and  most  groping  hypothesis,  to  press  it  when- 
ever convenient  beyond  the  limits  of  experiment  into  an  extrapolated  region,  and 
to  suppose  that  the  minds  of  entirely  disconnected  and  unconscious  strangers  at  a 
distance  are  actually  read :  when  it  has  never  been  experimentally  shown  that 
they  can  be  read  at  all.     (p.  39). 35 

Second,  Telepathy,  as  supported  by  "spontaneous  cases"  (as,  appari- 
tions of  the  living  or  the  dying),  is  not  proved. 
Podmore  wrote,  in   1894: 

The  kind  of  evidence  now  to  be  considered  the  coincidence  of  some  spon- 
taneous affection  of  the  percipient  with  some  event  in  the  life-history  of  the  per- 
son presumed  to  be  the  agent,  as  when  one  sees  the  apparition  of  a  friend  at  the 
time  of  his  death — is  of  inferior  cogency  in  two  ways  [to  the  evidence  from  ex- 
perimental cases]  :  the  coincidences  are  neither  so  numerous  nor  so  exact ;  and 
the  risk  of  error  in  the  record  is  far  greater,     (p.  143). 36 

And  in  1910: 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  these  faculties  (telepathy,  clairvoyance, 
precognition,  and  the  like)  have  not  yet  been  admitted  to  the  rights  of  citizenship 
in  the  republic  of  science,  though  one  of  them  (telepathy)  has  filed  a  petition  for 
naturalization.  Let  us  examine  first  the  claims  of  this  aspirant,  telepathy.  .  .  . 
Now,rthe  main  evidence  for  the  operation  of  this  presumed  faculty  of  telepathy 
consists  of  experiments  in  which  the  two  parties  to  the  transfer,  the  agent  and 
the  percipient,  were  in  the  same  room,  or,  at  any  rate,  within  a  few  yards  of  each 
other.  Many  series  of  successful  experiments  in  the  transference  of  ideas  and 
sensations  have  been  conducted  under  these  conditions.  .  .  .  B^jJ  it  was  found 
that  a  slight  increase  in  the  distance  exercised  a  marked  effect  on  the  result.  .  .  . 
There  have  been  a  few  isolated  instances,  and  a  few  short  series  of  experiments, 
in  which  it  is  claimed  that  definite  ideas  of  numbers,  objects,  or  pictures  have 
been  telepathically  transferred  between  agent  and  percipient  when  separated  by 
distances  varying  from  hundreds  of  yards  to  hundreds  of  miles.  But  when  we 
remember  the  habitual  inaccuracy  of  untrained  investigators,  and  the  various 
sources  of  error  in  experiments  of  this  kind,  together  with  the  practical  certainty 
that  the  successes  reported,  even  if  recorded  with  perfect  accuracy,  bear  but  an 
infinitesimal  proportion  to  the  unrecorded  failures,  it  is  impossible  to  assign  much 


36  Lodge,    Sir    Oliver:     President's   address.     Proceedings  S.P.R.,    1902,    17: 

37-57- 

38  Podmore :    Apparitions  and  Thought-Transference,  an  examination  of  the 
evidence  for  Telepathy.    London,  1894. 


THE  PRESENT   IMPORTANCE  OF  THE   PROBLEM  15 

weight    to    these    sporadic    instances    of    "thought    transference    at    a    distance." 
(pp.  21-23)." 

We  can  hardly  be  justified  in  making  the  spontaneous  phenomena  [appari- 
tions at  the  time  of  death]  the  basis  of  a  theory  of  telepathy,  (p.  26).  .  .  .  Con- 
sidered by  themselves,  they  hardly  carry  weight  enough  to  count ;  it  is  only 
because  of  their  presumed  kinship  with  the  manifestations  of  experimental 
telepathy  that  they  have  any  claim  to  be  heard  at  all.    (p.  26). 37 

Carrington,   1908: 

Without  experimental  evidence,  we  should  certainly  be  unwarranted  in 
inventing  that  theory    [telepathy]   to   explain  the  spontaneous  cases,      (p.   198) .38 

Tuckett,  191 1 : 

The  evidence  for  telepathy  is  at  first  sight  most  striking  and  abundant,  so 
that  a  belief  in  its  reality  is  now  almost  universal,  at  any  rate  outside  strictly 
scientific  circles,  (p.  107).  .  .  .  Scientifically  all  one  can  say  is  that  the  evidence 
for  telepathy  is  wonderfully  suggestive,    (p.   109). 39 

And  James,  1909: 

The  peculiarity  of  the  case  is  just  that  there  are  so  many  sources  of  possible 
deception  in  most  of  the  observations  that  the  whole  lot  of  them  may  be  worth- 
less,    (p.   175).40 

Third,  Telepathy  as  supported  by  direct  experiment  is  not  proved. 
Hyslop,  in  his  introduction  to  one  of  Carrington's  books,  published 
in  1908,  says : 

Mr.  Carrington  brings  out  clearly  that  it  [telepathy]  is  not  to  be  regarded 
as  an  explanation  of  anything,  and  is  only  a  name  for  facts  requiring  such  an 
explanation.  This  is  of  all  things  one  of  the  most  important  qualifications  with 
which  the  term  is  to  be  used.  Moreover,  it  is  well  to  keep  in  mind  that,  even 
as  an  alleged  fact  of  the  supernormal  kind,  it  is  not  a  generally  accepted  phe- 
nomenon in  the  scientific  world.  Only  a  few  men  seriously  believe  in  it,  and 
others  are  willing  to  speak  and  think  of  it  tolerantly  in  order  to  escape  a  pro- 
founder  alternative,     (pp.   n-12).41 

James,  in   1896,  wrote: 

No  mere  reader   [of  the   experimental   results]   can  be  blamed,   however,  if 


37Podmore,  Frank:    The  Newer  Spiritualism.     London,  1910. 

38  Carrington,  Hereward:    The  Coming  Science.    Boston,  1908. 

39  Tuckett,   Ivor  LI. :    The   Evidence   for   the   Supernatural,   a   critical   study 
made  with  "uncommon  sense."    London,  191 1. 

40  James:    Memories  and   Studies.     New   York,    191 1. 

41  Carrington,  Hereward :    The  Coming  Science.     Boston,  1908. 


16  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

he   demand,   for   so   revolutionary   a   belief,   a   more   overwhelming  bulk   of   testi- 
mony than  has  yet  been  supplied,      (p.  309). 42 

Jastrow,  in  1900: 

That  there  is  something  in  these  results  to  be  explained  is  admitted:  whether 
the  results  have  been  obtained  and  recorded  in  such  a  way  as  to  contain  the  clue 
to  their  explanation  cannot  be  affirmed ;  whether  our  present  state  of  knowledge 
enables  us  to  explain  them  may  be  argued  pro  and  con ;  whether  they  are  worth 
serious  attention  is  also  a  debatable  question ;  but  none  of  these  conditions  war- 
rants a  resort  to  the  telepathic  hypothesis,     (pp.  98-9). *3 

What  is  the  logical  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  the  data  offerable  in  evi- 
dence of  some  supersensory  form  of  thought-transference  ...  ?  .  .  .  I  can  say  no 
more  in  dismissing  the  topic  than  that  to  me  the  phenomena  represent  a  complex 
conglomerate,  in  which  imperfectly  recognized  modes  of  sense-action,  hyper- 
esthesia and  hysteria,  fraud,  conscious  and  unconscious,  chance,  collusion,  simi- 
larity of  mental  processes,  an  expectant  interest  in  presentiments  and  a  belief 
in  their  significance,  nervousness  and  ill  health,  illusions  of  memory,  hallucina- 
tions, suggestion,  contagion,  and  other  elements  enter  into  the  composition; 
while  defective  observation,  falsification  of  memory,  forgetfulness  of  details,  bias 
and  prepossession,  suggestion  from  others,  lack  of  training  and  of  a  proper  inves- 
tigative temperament,  further  invalidate  and  confuse  the  records  of  what  is  sup- 
posed to  have  been  observed.  Manypf  the  reported  facts  are  not  facts  at  all; 
others  are  too  distortedly  and  too  'deficiently  reported  to  be  either  intelligible  or 
suggestive ;  some  are  accurately  observed  and  properly  recorded,  and  these  some- 
times contain  a  probable  suggestion  of  their  natural  explanation,  sometimes  must 
be  put  down  as  chance,  and  more  often  must  be  left  unexplained.  To  call  this 
absence  of  an  explanation  telepathy  is  surely  no  advance ;  to  pose  this  hypothetic 
process  as  the  modus  operandi  of  any  result  that  can  be  even  remotely  and  con- 
tingently otherwise  accounted  for  seems  superfluous ;  to  actually  use  this 
hypothesis  to  account  for  still  more  obscure  and  more  indefinite  and  less  clearly 
established  phenomena  is  a  most  egregious  logical  sin.     (pp.   103-4). 43 

And  N.  W.  Thomas,  in  1905 : 

The  statistical  method  ...  has  been  applied  to  experimental  thought-trans- 
ference data,  but  it  has  hardly  been  recognized  that  the  few  complete  series  which 
have  been  published  are  insufficient  even  to  demonstrate  the  mere  fact  of  telepa- 
thy ..  .  It  would  be  well  for  the  Society  for  Psychic  Research  to  recognize  this 
and  organize  further  experiments  on  a  large  scale  before  assuming,  as  its  mem- 
bers commonly  do  in  discussions  on  trance  mediumship,  that  telepathy  is  a  vera 
causa,  and  not  only  needs  no  further  demonstration,  but  may  be  invoked  on  any 
and  every  occasion,  regardless  of  the  fact  that,  in  so  doing,  a  role  is  frequently 
assigned  to  it  which  may  well  stagger  the  imagination,  though  no  evidence,  scien- 
tific or  otherwise,  has  ever  been  presented  for  the  telepathic  power  in  the  extreme 


"James:    The  Will  to  Believe.     New  York,  1899. 

'•,  Jastrow,  Jos. :    Fact  and  Fable   in   Psychology.     Boston,   1000. 


THE  PRESENT   IMPORTANCE  OF  THE   PROBLEM  17 

form  in  which  it  is  invoked,  to  explain  away  experiments  more  readily  explained 
on  a  spiritistic  hypothesis,     (pp.  177-8). 44 


The  Present  Status  of  Telepathy. 

The  hypothesis  of  telepathy,  then,  is  a  serious  competitor  with  the 
spiritistic  hypothesis  in  the  explanation  of  trance  and  other  automatic 
utterances,  and  is  seriously  employed  by  the  foremost  psychical  re- 
searchers. This  important  role,  however,  is  challenged  by  equally  prom- 
inent researchers  and  students  of  psychical  phenomena,  challenged  in 
every  phase  of  its  alleged  operation  from  its  more  complex  to  its  sim- 
plest forms. 

-<ft  might  be  well,  therefore,  to  inquire  what  status  the  telepathic 
hypothesis  occupies  in  the  minds  of  the  foremost  psychical  researchers 
and  of  such  psychologists  as  give  it  attention.  Let  it  be  recalled  that 
one  of  the  principal  aims  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research  at  the 
time  of  its  founding,  in  1882,  was  the  investigation  of  thought-transfer- 
ence, and  that  within  ten  years  the  Society  presented  the  great  bulk  of 
its  evidence  in  its  voluminous  Proceedings.  Some  of  the  leading  re- 
searchers who  had  charge  of  the  investigation  had  already  been  con- 
vinced by  experimental  evidence,  of  the  fact  of  telepathy,  before  this 
organized  effort  to  produce  scientific  proof  was  begun ;  and  others  be- 
came convinced  in  the  course  of  investigation. 

It  will  be  in  the  interest  of  economy  if  in  our  canvass  of  opinion 
we  select  more  recent  statements,  and  display  more  freely  the  more 
critical  but  not  the  extreme  opinions.46 


44  Thomas,    Northcote   W. :     Thought   Transference.      London,    1905. 

45  The  reader  is  referred  for  systematic  reviews  of  the  evidence  to  the 
following  works : 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge :    The   Survival  of  Man.     New  York :    Moffat,   10x39. 

Professor  W.  F.  Barrett:     Psychical  Research.    London,  191 1. 

Frank  Podmore :  Apparitions  and  Thought-Transference.  London :  Scott, 
1894.  The  Naturalization  of  the  Supernatural.  New  York :  Putnams,  1908. 
Telepathic  Hallucinations.     Halifax :    Milner,  n.  d. 

N.  W.  Thomas :    Thought  Transference.     London,   1905. 

Ivor  LI.  Tuckett:    The  Evidence  for  the  Supernatural.    London:    Paul,  191 1. 

James  H.  Hyslop :  Psychical  Research  and  the  Resurrection.  Boston : 
Small,  1908. 

G.  Stanley  Hall:     Am.  Jr.  Psychology,  1888,  1 :  128  ff. ;  1895,  7:135  ft. 

For  recent  controversy,  see  articles  by  Tuckett,  Lodge,  Hill,  Lankester,  "A 
Business  Man,"  Armstrong,  and  "The  Hermit  of  Prague,"  in  Bedrock,  A  Quar- 
terly Review  of  Scientific  Thought.    London,  vols.  1  and  2  (1912-14). 


18  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

For  Baldwin's  Dictionary  of  Philosophy  and  Psychology,  Mrs. 
Sidgwick,  in  1902,  wrote: 

The  existence  of  telepathy  is  not  yet  generally  admitted  by  the  scientific 
world,  but  it  has  been  one  of  the  main  functions  of  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research  to  obtain  and  investigate  evidence  on  the  subject,    (p.  668). 46 

Podmore,  in  1894: 

The  possibility  of  the  transference  of  ideas  and  sensations  must  be  held  to 
be  proved  by  the  experiments  recorded.  That  proof  can  be  impugned  only  on 
the  ground  that  the  precautions  taken  against  communication  between  agent  and 
percipient  by  normal  means  were  insufficient,     (p.   143).47 

In  1902 : 

For  my  own  part,  I  see  no  reason  to  doubt  that  if  the  existence  of  thought- 
transference  should  eventually  be  demonstrated — and  I  do  not  claim  that  the 
demonstration  is  or  ought  to  be  considered  complete — the  explanation  will  be 
found  strictly  within  the  region  of  natural  law.  ...  It  must  be  admitted  that  the 
older  evidence  is  far  more  demonstrative.  Possibly,  apart  from  two  recent  items 
— the  experiments  at  Brighton  conducted  by  Professor  and  Mrs.  Sidgwick  and 
the  records  of  Mrs.  Piper's  trance-utterances — the  question  of  the  reality  of  such 
a  faculty  would  hardly  seem  worth  discussion.     (Int.,  p.  xvii).48 

And  in  1910: 

The  evidence  for  thought-transference  at  close  quarters  is  experimental ; 
and  the  experiments  have  been  conducted  by  such  competent  investigators  as 
Mrs.  Sidgwick,  Edmund  Gurney,  Professor  W.  F.  Barrett,  Sir  Oliver  Lodge, 
Pierre  Janet,  Charles  Richet,  and  others  of  like  caliber.  Yet,  even  so,  it  is  still 
a  claimant  for  scientific  recognition,     (p.  25). 49 

Constable,  in  191 1 : 

I  agree  with  Podmore  that  experimental  cases  constitute  the  strongest  evi- 
dence we  have  towards  proof  of  the  fact  of  telepathy,  and  that  a  full  considera- 
tion of  the  cases  leads,  practically,  to  proof  of  the  fact.  But  I  think  such  cases 
are  more  open  to  suspicion  of  good  faith  than  spontaneous  cases.  .  .  .  The  very 
strength,  the  completeness  of  the  evidence,  may  point  to  fraud,     (p.  221  ).50 

Tuckett,  in  191 1 : 

As  regards  experimental  cases  of  telepathy,  I  have  never  yet  seen  any  evi- 
dence  such   as   will    satisfy   a    scientific    standard   of   truth,   though   some   of   the 


46  Sidgwick,  Mrs.   Henry :    Psychical  Research.     Baldwin's  Diet,  of  Phil,  and 
Psychol.,   1002. 

47  Podmore :    Apparitions  and  Thought-Transference,   an   examination  of  the 
evidence   for   Telepathy.     London,   1894. 

48  Podmore :      Modern     Spiritualism,     a     history     and     a     criticism.       New 
York,   1902. 

49  Podmore :    The    Newer   Spiritualism.     London,    1910. 

nn  Constable,   F.    C. :     Personality   and   Telepathy.     London,    191 1. 


THE   PRESENT  IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  PROBLEM  19 

results  are  distinctly  striking.     Yet   in  experiments  carried  out  for  this  purpose 
such  a  proof  should  be  possible,     (p.   127). 61 

N.  W.  Thomas,  in  1905,  concerning  his  own  experiments,  said: 

The  results  of  the  card  experiments  ...  are  hardly  sufficiently  decisive  for 
it  to  be  possible  to  base  any  conclusion  on  them.     (p.   175 ).52 

And  concerning  the  status  of  the  telepathic  hypothesis: 

If  I  venture  to  express  my  own  conviction  on  the  subject,  it  is  that  much 
more  effort,  and,  in  particular,  much  more  systematic  effort,  is  needed  before  we 
can  safely  assert  that  telepathy  is  a  proved53  fact.  (p.  176).  When  we  have 
arrived  at  that  point  our  task  is  only  begun.  No  inquiry  can  lay  claim  to  be 
scientific  which  expresses  its  results  in  general  terms  when  it  can  give  them  in 
precise  terms.  .  .  .  Psychical  Research  must  ...  be  made  a  question  of  statistics 
if  further  conclusions  are  to  be  based  on  the  results,     (pp.   176-7). 

Perhaps  it  may  never  be  possible  to  formulate  a  telepathic  law  in  terms  like 
those  of  the  law  of  gravitation,  or  to  devise  such  experimental  conditions  as  will 
enable  the  student  of  trance  mediums  to  say  with  confidence  that  his  results  can- 
not be  explained  by  telepathy.  But,  until  the  effort  has  been  made,  no  investiga- 
tion into  trance  mediumship  has  the  data  which  can  alone  enable  it  to  formulate 
reliable  conclusions,      (pp.   1 79-80) ,54 

Bramwell,  who  was  a  member  of  a  committee  of  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research  devoted  mainly  to  telepathic  experiments,  in  1906, 
wrote : 

During  the  last  twenty  years  I  have  searched  for  evidence  of  telepathy,  and 
also  taken  part  in  the  experiments  of  other  observers ;  the  results,  however,  have 
invariably  been  negative,     (p.    136). 

[Referring  to  the  experiments  made  by  eminent  men:]  Altho  their  experi- 
ments were  carefully  conducted,  it  is  doubtful  whether  all  possible  sources  of 
error  were  excluded;    and  I  am  unable  to  accept  them  as  conclusive,     (p.  142). 

After  many  years'  hypnotic  work,  and  frequent  opportunities  of  investigat- 
ing the  experiments  of  others,  I  have  seen  nothing,  absolutely  nothing,  which 
might  be  fairly  considered  as  affording  even  the  slightest  evidence  for  the 
existence  of  telepathy,  or  any  of  the  so-called  "occult"  phenomena,     (p.  142). 

Despite  all  this  it  would  be  unphilosophic  to  deny  the  possibility  of  telepathy. 
(P-   I43)-5S 

Moll,  who  witnessed  some  of  the  experiments  conducted  by  Mrs. 


51  Tuckett,    Ivor   LI. :     The    Evidence    for   the   Supernatural,   a   critical    study 
made  with  "uncommon  sense."     London,  191 1. 

52  Thomas,  Northcote  W. :    Thought  Transference.     London,   1905. 

53  Proved,  the  author  means,  by  direct  experiment. 

54  Thomas,    Northcote   W. :     Thought    Transference.      London,    1905. 

55  Bramwell,     J.     Milne :      Hypnotism,     its     history,     practice     and     theory. 
London,   1906. 


20  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

Sidgwick  at  Brighton,  a  series  already  mentioned  as  noteworthy,  in  1909, 
said: 

The  experiments  were  not  conclusive.  Also  the  experiments  made  by  the 
other  persons  I  have  mentioned  do  not  stand  serious  criticism.  My  own  experi- 
ments, especially  those  I  made  some  years  ago  in  conjunction  with  Max  Dessoir, 
only  gave  negative  results  when  the  necessary  precautions  were  taken.  Still,  I 
agree  with  Loewenfeld  that  we  cannot  deny  the  possibility  of  there  being  such  a 
thing  as  telepathy,  or  at  least  the  possibility  of  there  being  ways  of  influencing 
others  about  which  we  know  nothing  in  the  present  day.  But  up  to  the  present 
[1909,  4th  ed.]   no  proof  of  this  has  been  forthcoming,     (p.  515). 

As  I  have  already  mentioned,  we  need  not  attach  much  importance  to  the  fact 
that  a  few  savants  uphold  the  reality  of  occultistic  phenomena.  I  myself  formerly 
attached  a  certain  amount  of  importance  to  this  fact.  But  since  I  have  observed 
the  utter  helplessness  of  savants  directly  they  enter  on  methods  of  investigation 
with  which  they  are  not  thoroughly  acquainted,  I  have  become  convinced  that 
mediums  easily  lead  great  savants  by  the  nose.     (p.  551). 

When  I  come  to  look  through  the  vast  literature  of  occultism,  I  find  that  I 
am  totally  unable  to  discover  even  one  single  series  of  experiments  that  carries 
with  it  a  convincing  proof  of  the  reality  of  occultistic  phenomena ;  nothing  but 
casual  observations  of  unchecked  experiments.  There  was  a  time  when  some  of 
the  telepathic  experiments  carried  out  in  England — more  especially  those  made  by 
Guthrie  and  Birchall — appeared  to  me,  relatively  speaking,  free  from  error.  Never- 
theless, when  I  take  into  consideration  the  way  in  which  the  reports  are  drawn  up, 
I  am  compelled  to  admit  that  those  experiments  are  not  convincing,     (p.  552). °6 

Simon  Newcomb,  the  American  astronomer,  and  the  first  President 
of  the  American  Society  for  Psychical  Research  (founded  in  1884),  in 
a  statement  of  his  impressions  after  an  experience  of  fifty  years  with 
psychical  phenomena,  said : 

Nothing  has  been  brought  out  by  the  researches  of  the  [English]  Psychical 
Society  and  its  able  collaborators  except  what  we  should  expect  to  find  in  the  ordi- 
nary course  of  nature,     (p.  139)  .67 

Among  the  psychologists,  Flournoy  58  of  Geneva  and  M'Dougall 59 
of  England,  accept  the  hypothesis.  James,  already  quoted,  holds  it  as 
a  possible  alternative  to  his  suggested  theory  of  a  "cosmic  conscious- 
ness" in  the  explanation  of  Mrs.  Piper's  trance  phenomena. 

Jastrow,  a  member  of  the  council  in  the  old  American  Society  for 


56  Moll,  Albert:  Hypnotism,  including  a  study  of  the  chief  points  of  psycho- 
therapeutics and  occultism.    London,  1909. 

»' Newcomb,  Simon:  Modern  occultism.  Nineteenth  Century  and  After, 
January  1909,  65:126-139. 

58  Flournoy :     Spiritism  and  Psychology,  pp.  209  ff. 

69  M'Dougall,  William :     Body  and  Mind,  London,  1913.     P-  349- 


THE   PRESENT   IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  PROBLEM  21 

Psychical  Research,  and  now  for  many  years  in  charge  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  Psychology  at  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  also  quoted  above, 
in  1900,  said: 

I  regard  the  acceptance  of  telepathy  as  an  established  phenomenon,  as  abso- 
lutely unwarranted  and  most  unfortunate,     (p.  457). 60 

G.  Stanley  Hall,  one  of  the  leading  spirits  in  the  founding  of  the 
old  American  Society  for  Psychical  Research  (1884),  and  for  some 
time  a  vice-president  and  a  member  of  the  council,  founder  of  the  first 
laboratory  in  America  for  experimental  psychology,  at  Johns  Hopkins 
University,  and  now  for  many  years  the  president  of  Clark  University, 
was  most  sympathetic  with  the  aims  and  purposes  of  the  English  S.  P. 
R.  at  the  time  of  its  founding  and  has  followed  its  work  with  keen  at- 
tention.    He  said,  in  1887: 

We  have  spent  much  time  and  labor  in  repeating  with  many  subjects  nearly 
all  the  experiments  of  the  English  Society,  only  to  find  in  very  many  cases  an  un- 
accountable proportion  of  error.61 

In  1895: 

The  writer  has  diligently  read  the  experiments  of  the  Proceedings,  and  can 
honestly  say  that  there  is  not  one  in  which  the  conditions  as  reported  seem  to  him 
satisfactory.  .  .  .  Give  us  one  little  fact,  ever  so  little,  that  we  can  freely  test 
and  reproduce  once  a  year  in  our  laboratory.  We  will  cross  seas  to  see  it,  will 
acknowledge  our  mistaken  skepticism,  and  confess  telepathy,  and  turn  the  research 
of  one  laboratory  at  least  in  a  new  direction.62 

And  in  1910: 

Even  telepathy  seems  to  me  a  striking  case  of  the  subjection  of  the  intellect 
by  the  will-to-believe.  .  .  .  Here  I  have  for  years  had  a  standard  series  of  tests 
often  tried  on  believers  in  telepathy  and  clairvoyance,  but  never  with  a  glimmer  of 
success.  Only  when  conditions  can  be  so  controlled  that,  e.  g.,  a  teacher  can  an- 
nounce beforehand  that,  on  such  a  day,  hour,  and  place  he  will  demonstrate  these 
things,  can  or  will  they  be  accepted  by  any  sound  scientific  mind,     (xxxi-xxxii).63 

Pfungst,  the  clever  investigator  who  published  the  remarkable  re- 
port of  experiments  made  with  Clever  Hans,  the  celebrated  "educated" 
horse,  in  191 1,  said: 


60  Jastrow :  The  modern  occult.  Popular  Science  Monthly,  1900,  vol.  57, 
foot-note. 

91  Am.  Jr.  Psychology,  1887,  1 :  143. 

«2  Ibid.,  1895-96,  7:139. 

*3  Tanner,  Amy  E. :  Studies  in  Spiritism.  Introduction  by  G.  Stanley  Hall. 
New  York,  1910. 


22  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

It  may  be  that  these  truly  microscopic  movements  also  play  some  part  in 
bringing  about  the  success  of  some  of  the  experiments  in  telepathy,  so-called, 
(transference  of  thought  from  one  person  to  another,  ostensibly  without  any  medi- 
ation of  the  senses  known  to  us).  In  spite  of  the  huge  mass  of  "experimental 
evidence"  which  has  been  collected,  chiefly  in  England  and  in  America,  it  appears 
to  me  that  telepathy  is  nothing  but  an  unproven  hypothesis  based  upon  experimental 
errors,     (p.   108,  note).64 

Professor  James  R.  Angell,  head  of  the  Department  of  Psychology 
at  the  University  of  Chicago,  in  1912,  said: 

However,  telepathy  is  not  to  be  laughed  out  of  court  merely  by  ridicule. 
There  is  a  very  respectable  body  of  evidence  tending  to  show  that,  occasionally  at 
least,  such  transfer  of  knowledge  has  occurred.  [How  it  comes  about  is  not  known ; 
moreover,]  the  rank  and  file  of  scientific  psychologists  probably  disbelieve  vigor- 
ously in  the  reality  of  anything  except  occasional  coincidences,  such  as  are  met 
with  in  all  aspects  of  nature,     (p.  I47)-65 

And  Professor  Titchener,  head  of  the  Department  of  Psychology  at 
Cornell  University,  in  1898,  said: 

No  scientifically-minded  psychologist  believes  in  telepathy.  66 

Tuckett,  recognized  by  the  leaders  in  psychical  research  as  a  hostile 
critic,  recently  (in  1913)  summed  up  the  situation  as  follows: 

All  the  evidence  for  "spirit-control,"  "telepathy,"  and  "psychic  force,"  has 
been  obtained  under  conditions  precluding  the  possibility  of  being  certain  that  it  is 
not  vitiated  by  fallacies  due  to  fraud,  self-deception,  or  incompleteness  of  data.67 

This  position  is  consistent  with  that  maintained  by  the  author  in  his 
book,68  published  two  years  earlier,  of  which  Jastrow  in  an  appreciative 
review  said : 

It  shows  so  clearly  the  necessity  of  trained  judgment,  and  the  saturation  of 
the  inquiring  mind  with  a  saving  grace  of  logical  rectitude,  sustained  in  turn  by 
psychological  insight,  for  a  safe  conduct  through  the  tangled  thicket  from  which 
so  many  a  traveler  returns  with  strange  tales  and  stranger  beliefs,     (p.  461  ).69 


64  Pfungst,  Oscar :     Clever  Hans,  the  Horse  of  Mr.  von  Osten ;  a  contribution 
to  experimental,  animal  and  human  psychology.     New  York,  191 1. 

65  Angell,  James   Roland :     Chapters   from   Modern   Psychology.     New   York, 
1912. 

66  Titchener  :     The  feeling  of  being  stared  at.     Science,  1898,  8 :  896. 

67  Tuckett :      Psychical    Research :     The   illogical   position    of   some   psychical 
researchers;   A  rejoinder  to  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  and  Mr.  Hill.    Bedrock,  1913,  1  1470. 

68  Tuckett :     The  Evidence  for  the  Supernatural :    a  critical  study  made  with 
"uncommon  sense."    London,  191 1. 

"Jastrow:    The  Dial,  1912,  52:461-3. 


FURTHER    EXPERIMENTAL    WORK    IMPERATIVE  23 


Further  Experimental  Work  Imperative. 

That  the  criticisms  leveled  at  the  evidence  upon  which  the  leaders 
of  psychical  research  have  erected  the  telepathic  hypothesis,  now  ex- 
ploited everywhere  in  the  explanation  of  psychical  phenomena,  have  not 
been  without  effect  upon  the  leaders  themselves,  is  indicated  by  a  per- 
haps unanimous  agreement  that  the  old  successful  experimental  results 
need  further  verification,  under  such  conditions  of  experiment  as  will 
both  eliminate  sources  of  error  prejudicial  to  the  establishing  of  the  fact 
of  telepathy,  and  reveal  somewhat  the  nature  of  the  process,  e.  g., 
whether  it  follows  the  laws  of  radiant  energy,  or  whether  it  is  "non- 
material."     Proof  acceptable  to  science  is  desired. 

Thus,  Lodge  is  still  engaged  in  experiments  on  telepathy,  and  the 
Society  officially  issued  a  recent  call  (February  1915)  to  its  members 
and  associates  for  assistance : 

To  Members  and  Associates  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research : 
The  Society  for  Psychical  Research  is  anxious  to  try  experiments  of  various 
kinds,  hypnotic  and  other,  with  a  view  to  obtaining  further  evidence  either  of  tel- 
epathy or  of  hyperaesthesia.  ...  In  all  experimental  work  quantity,  as  well  as 
quality,  is  important,  and  we  hope,  therefore,  that  not  only  will  a  considerable 
number  of  subjects  present  themselves,  but  that  they  will  be  willing  to  continue 
the  experiments  regularly,  say,  once  a  week,  for  at  least  two  or  three  months, 
should  it  appear  that  interesting  results  are  likely  to  be  obtained.70 

Something  concerning  the  conditions  of  experimentation,  and  the  na- 
ture of  the  results  of  recent  experiments,  is  intimated  in  the  same  issue 
of  the  Journal : 

In  most  of  the  experiments  in  telepathy  that  are  carried  on  at  the  Rooms,  it 
is  arranged  for  the  agent  to  be  in  one  room  and  the  percipient  in  another. 

Though  telepathic  phenomena  seem  to  occur  fairly  often,  it  is  well  known 
that  they  can  only  be  experimentally  demonstrated  in  rare  cases,  so  that  much  of 
the  time  spent  in  such  experiments  is  inevitably  fruitless,  producing  merely  nega- 
tive results.  Among  a  number  of  sets  of  experiments,  however,  tried  during  the 
last  two  years,  a  considerable  proportion  of  successful  results  were  obtained  with 
two  experimenters,      (pp.  22-3). 

This  return  of  the  Society,  the  publications  of  which  contain  the 
principal  evidence  for  telepathy,  to  the  problem,  may  be  accepted  as  pro- 
fessional and  official  recognition  of  urgent  need  for  further  work  in  this 
field  by  psychical  research.  And,  when  it  is  recalled  that  Professor 
Richet  insisted  that  his  favorable  results  in  experimental  thought-trans- 


70  Journal  S.P.R.,  Feb.   1915,   17:32. 


24  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

ference  needed  verification ; "  and  that  the  old  American  Society  for 
Psychical  Research  (1884-1889)  which  set  itself  this  task  discontinued 
its  effort,  after  accumulating  an  imposing  array  of  negative  evidence, 
with  an  appeal  by  the  Council  for  further  cooperation,  this  trend  in  psy- 
chical research  appears  inevitable. 

It  is  true  that  from  the  beginning  certain  leaders  urged  repeated 
experimental  investigation  of  telepathy.     Myers,  in  1884,  said: 

It  is  an  obvious  fact,  but  it  is  nevertheless  a  fact  which  we  must  repeat  as 
often  as  possible,  that  in  no  way  can  psychical  research  be  better  aided  than  by 
constant  and  varied  experiments  on  thought-transference   in  every   form.      (p.  217).72 

Gurney's  statement,  made  in  the  same  year,  has  just  been  quoted  in 
a  foot-note. 

In  the  discussion  which  followed  F.  W.  H.  Myers's  report  on  the 
more  recent  English  experiments  on  thought-transference,  before  the 
International  Congress  of  Experimental  Psychology  at  Paris,  (August 
10,  1890),  Professor  Richet  said  that  he  knew  well  of  those  experiments 
and  had  himself  carried  out  a  great  number  of  a  similar  kind,  reaching 
similar  results;   and  (as  reported  by  Dr.  A.  T.  Myers)  that 

Such  experiments  should  be  repeated  widely  and  with  the  greatest  care,  for 
if  the  proof  of  thought-transference  to  which  they  led  could  be  established,  with- 
out doubt  it  would  be  one  of  the  greatest  discoveries  of  our  time.     (p.  182). 73 

And   Professor   Sidgwick   "entirely  agreed  in   the  view    [expressed  by 
Professor  Richet]    that   more  experiments  were   urgently   required." "° 
Balfour  Stewart,  in  his  Presidential  Address  before  the  Society,  in 
1885,  said: 


71  Gurney,  in  his  review  of  Richet's  work  (Proceedings  S.P.R.,  2:242) 
pointed  out  that  Richet  was  in  error  in  interpreting  his  result  as  the  degree  of 
probability  of  the  existence  of  a  "Suggestion  Mentale,"  instead  of  the  "most  prob- 
able measure"  of  the  influence  of  the  faculty  if  it  exists ;  and  that  a  repetition  of 
Richet's  experiments  would  yield  "a  valuable  contribution."  And  on  another  page 
he  said : 

"He  [Richet]  insists  that  the  experiments  must  be  repeated ;  and  the  im- 
portance of  this  cannot  be  too  strongly  urged."     (p.  257). 

72  Myers,  F.  W.  H. :  On  a  telepathic  explanation  of  some  so-called  spiritual- 
istic phenomena.     Proceedings  S.P.R.,  1884,  2:217-237. 

73  A.  T.  Myers :  International  Congress  of  Experimental  Psychology.  Pro- 
ceedings S.  P.  R.,  1890.  6:171-182;  Cf.,  Congres  International  de  Psychologie 
Physiologique,  Premiere  Session,  Paris,   1890,  Comte  Rendu,  p.   153. 

™o Proceedings  S.P.R.,  1889,  6:182. 


FURTHER   EXPERIMENTAL   WORK    IMPERATIVE  25 

To  my  mind  the  evidence  already  adduced  is  such  as  to  render  highly  prob- 
able the  occasional  presence  amongst  us  of  something  which  we  call  thought- 
transference  or  more  generally  telepathy;  but  it  is  surely  our  duty  as  a  Society 
to  continue  to  accumulate  evidence  until  the  existence  of  such  a  power  cannot  be 
controverted,     (p.  66). 74 

That  the  large  amount  of  evidence  that  was  accumulated  during  the 
half-dozen  years  following  these  appeals  has  not  proven  conclusive  has 
already  been  shown  in  the  opinions  quoted  above.  And  during  the  more 
recent  years  equally  urgent  appeals  for  further  investigation  have  been 
made. 

Podmore,  in  1894,  wrote: 

The  first  stage  of  our  inquiry  is  not  yet  complete.  It  would  be  futile  for  us 
to  debate  what  manner  of  new  agency  we  propose  to  believe  in  until  it  is  generally 
admitted  by  competent  persons  that  the  facts  are  not  to  be  attributed  to  such  rec- 
ognized, if  insufficiently  familiar,  causes  as  illusion,  misrepresentation,  and  the 
subconscious  quickening  of  normal  faculties.  More  and  varied  experiments  are 
wanted,     (p.  394) ,75 

James,  in  his  presidential  address  to  the  English  Society,  in  1896, 
said: 

We  have  published  records  of  experiments  on  at  least  thirty  subjects,  roughly 
speaking,  and  many  of  these  were  strikingly  successful.  But  their  types  are  het- 
erogeneous ;  in  some  cases  the  conditions  were  not  faultless ;  in  others  the  ob- 
servations were  not  prolonged ;  and,  generally  speaking,  we  must  all  share  in  a 
regret  that  the  evidence,  since  it  has  reached  the  point  it  has  reached,  should  not 
grow  more  voluminous  still.76 

In  the  Journal  for  January  1900,  under  the  title  of  "Premature 
Generalizations  about  Telepathy,"  the  precautions  necessary  to  be  taken 
in  experiments  in  telepathy  are  discussed,  and  the  author  continues : 

It  is  true  that  the  necessity  for  all  these  precautions  was  soon  discovered  by 
some  of  the  earliest  systematic  workers  of  our  Society  (as  may  be  seen  by  refer- 
ence to  the  accounts  of  their  experiments  published  in  the  early  numbers  of  the 
Proceedings)  ;  but  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  only  way  of  advancing  the  subject 
further  is  to  carry  out  many  more  experiments  under  the  same  stringent  condi- 
tions as  there  described,  or  with  any  further  precautions  that  experience  might 
suggest.  Accounts  of  such  experiments  would  be  most  gladly  received  by  the 
Editor,     (p.  170.) 77 


74  Stewart,  Balfour:    President's  address.    Proceedings  S.P.R.,  1885,  3:64-68. 
76  Podmore :    Apparitions  and  Thought-Transference.     London,  1894. 
78 James:    The  address  of  the  president.     Proceedings  S.P.R.,  1896-97,12:4. 
"Journal  S.P.R.,  Jan.  1900,  9:169-176. 


26  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

Lodge,  in  1909,  wrote: 

Why  investigate  that  of  which  we  are  sure?  Why  conduct  experiments  in 
hypnotism  or  in  telepathy?  Why  seek  to  confirm  that  of  which  we  already  have 
conviction?  .  .  .  The  business  of  Science  is  not  belief  but  investigation.  Belief  is 
both  the  prelude  to  and  the  outcome  of  knowledge.  If  a  fact  or  a  theory  has  had 
a  prima  facie  case  made  out  for  it,  subsequent  investigation  is  necessary  to  exam- 
ine and  extend  it.     (p.  24). 78 

And  in  1913 : 

If,  however,  direct  first-hand  laboratory  experience  of  the  rudimentary  stages 
of  such  a  faculty  is  wanted — as  it  ought  to  be — it  must  be  looked  and  waited  for, 
and  experiments  must  be  tried  from  time  to  time,  as  in  any  other  branch  of  sci- 
ence. ...  I  have  now  an  apparatus  set  up  for  examining  whether  traces  of  the 
faculty  exist  widespread  in  normal  people ;  and  I  shall  make  report  to  the  Society 
for  Psychical  Research  in  due  course.79 

Bergson,  in  his  presidential  address  of  1914,  presupposed  continued 
investigation  when  he  said : 

If  telepathy  is  real,  it  is  natural,  and  .  .  .  whenever  the  day  comes  that  we 
know  its  conditions,  it  will  no  more  be  necessary  to  wait  for  a  veridical  hallucina- 
tion in  order  to  obtain  a  telepathic  effect  than  it  is  necessary  for  us  now,  if  we 
wish  to  see  an  electric  spark,  to  wait  until  the  sky  gives  us  a  display  during  a 
thunderstorm,     (p.  160). 80 

Thomas,  in  1905,  wrote: 

In  order  to  justify  its  existence  as  a  body  whose  object  it  is  to  approach  the 
study  of  these  questions  scientifically,  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research  must 
endeavor  to  supply  these  data  and  again  take  up  the  question  of  thought-transfer- 
ence. That  other  subjects  attract  a  greater  share  of  popular  interest  is  clearly  no 
reason  for  dropping  the  inquiry.  Still  less  is  absence  of  success,  which  appears  to 
have  prevented  the  publication  of  the  trials  between  1892  and  1901,  a  reason  for 
discontinuing  them.  For  it  is  clear  that  the  smaller  the  measure  of  success  under 
rigid  conditions,  the  more  probable  is  it  that  the  conditions  in  earlier  and  more 
successful  trials  were  lacking  in  some  essential  particular,     (pp.   179-180).81 

Tuckett,  in  191 1,  while  admitting  "the  a  priori  possibility  of  telep- 
athy," maintains,  in  the  face  of  results  so  far  published,  an  attitude  of 
skepticism : 


78  Lodge :     The   Survival   of   Man,   a   study   in   unrecognized   human   faculty. 
New  York,  1909. 

79  Lodge:    Telepathy  as  a  fact  of  experience.     Bedrock,  1913,  2:57  ff. 

80  Bergson,  Henri:    Presidential  address   (before  the  S.  P.  R.),  delivered  May 
28,  1913.    Proceedings  S.P.R.,  1914,  27:157-175. 

81  Thomas,  Northcote  W. :    Thought  Transference.     London,   1905. 


FURTHER    EXPERIMENTAL    WORK    IMPERATIVE  27 

This  attitude,  however,  does  not  prevent  my  hoping  that  further  experiments 
in  telepathy  will  be  carried  out  by  researchers  trained  in  experimental  psychology, 
for  there  is  great  need  of  such  to  throw  adequate  light  on  the  question,  which  till 
then  we  must  "leave  in  a  decent  obscurity."     (pp.  307-8)  .82 

And  in  1912  he  charges  that  the  savants  who  have  accepted  the  results 
of  their  investigations  as  proof  of  the  fact  of  telepathy  were  satisfied 
with  evidence  that  is  not  capable  of  verification  (p.  182),  and  that  they 
were  inadequately  equipped  for  such  work : 

They  start  on  psychical  research  without  the  appropriate  preliminary  train- 
ing which  ought  strictly  to  include  knowledge  of  the  methods  of  experimental 
psychology,  of  conjuring  tricks,  and  of  the  vagaries  of  human  nature  such  as  is 
sometimes  given  by  a  medical  career,     (pp.   182  ff.). 

The  will  to  believe  has  made  them  ready  to  accept  evidence  obtained  under 
conditions  which  they  would  recognize  to  be  unsound  if  they  had  been  trained  in 
experimental  psychology,     (p.  204). 83 

Thus  is  the  paramount  issue  in  psychical  research  thrown  by  a  keen 
and  cautious  critic  into  the  laboratory  of  experimental  psychology,  and 
even  a  skeptical  psychologist  may  be  quoted  in  agreement  with  that  as- 
signment : 

Scripture,    in    1898,    after   discussing   certain    subtile   psychological 

processes,  said: 

For  thought-transference,  therefore,  all  that  is  required  is  to  find  a  subject 
who  has  an  abnormally  sharp  ear,  and,  for  your  part,  to  think  very  intently  on  the 
word  you  wish  transferred.  It  is  not  necessary  that  there  shall  be  any  intentional 
communication ;  if  the  investigators  are  sufficiently  untrained  in  scientific  psycho- 
logical experimenting,  and  are  inclined  to  attribute  results  to  occult  powers  rather 
than  to  their  own  incapacity,  the  proofs  of  thought-transference  inevitably  follow, 
(pp.  259-260 ).84 

And  after  laying  down  necessary  precautions  in  conducting  an  experi- 
ment: 

I  have,  I  hope,  said  enough  to  make  clear  what  an  experiment  is  and  what 
it  is  not.  Such  an  explanation  seems  necessary  at  a  time  when  so  many  really 
educated  persons  have  put  their  faith  in  the  results  and  deductions  by  the  methods 
of  psychical  research.  It  is  a  priori  impossible  for  an  untrained  man  to  make 
scientific  experiments,  and  it  is  to  be  deeply  regretted  that  persons  of  distinction 


82  Tuckett,   Ivor  LI. :    The   Evidence  for  the   Supernatural :    a  critical   study 
made  with  "uncommon  sense."     London,   191 1. 

83  Tuckett,  Ivor  LI. :    Psychical  researchers  and  the  will  to  believe.     Bedrock, 
1912,  1 :  180-204. 

84  Scripture,  E.  W. :    The  New  Psychology.    London,  1898. 


28  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

in  other  lines  should  undertake  problems  that  require  all  the  skill  of  a  long-trained 
worker  in  the  psychological  laboratory. 

The  objectionable  feature  of  psychical  research  does  not  lie  in  its  subject  of 
investigation.  .  .  .  The  objections  to  psychical  research  lie  in  its  unscientific  meth- 
ods of  experimentation  and  in  the  air  of  occultism  in  which  the  whole  is  envel- 
oped. If  the  investigators  were  trained  in  the  psychological  laboratory,  we  might 
expect  interesting  discoveries  in  regard  to  mind,  while  at  the  same  time  the  re- 
pellent mysticism  would  disappear  along  with  odic  force,  animal  magnetism, 
thought-transference,  and  other  ghosts,     (pp.  68-<p).84 

This  intimation  of  the  reception  the  problem '  would  meet  in  the 
usual  psychological  laboratory  might  be  supplemented  by  a  quotation 
from  another  psychologist: 

Jastrow,  who  says : 

I  must  not  fail  to  point  out,  however,  that  experiments  in  thought-transfer- 
ence have  one  important,  and  that  a  logical,  advantage  over  observations  of  coin- 
cidences ;  this  is  the  possibility  which  they  present  of  quite  accurately  allowing 
for  the  effect  of  chance,     (p.  97). 

.  .  .  While  I  incline  to  the  belief  that  the  hypothesis  of  telepathy  is,  as  usu- 
ally advanced  and  in  essence,  an  illegitimate  one,  I  still  regard  it  as  possible  that 
in  the  future  some  modification  of  this  hypothesis  may  be  found,  which  will  bring 
it  within  the  scope  of  a  liberal  conception  of  the  scientific,     (p.  ioi).85 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  the  psychological  laboratories  in  some 
universities 86  have  proved  hospitable  to  the  investigation  of  telepathy 
by  their  conduct  of  systematic  experiments  on  it,  and  the  press  87  an- 
nounces that  in  the  Harvard  laboratory,  where  arrangements  have  been 
made  for  psychical  research,  testing  for  "telepathic  sensitiveness"  in 
people  in  general  is  in  progress.  It  may  yet  be  possible  to  carry  out  the 
program  recently  suggested  by  The  Hermit  of  Prague.88  After  noting 
that  the  integrity  of  the  subjects  in  the  older  investigations  has  not  al- 
ways been  found  to  be  reliable,  and  that  for  the  purpose  "of  convincing 
the  world  that  the  truth  about  telepathy  has  already  been  discovered, 
the  recorded  experiments  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research  are  al- 
most without  value"  (p.  431),  he  recommends  the  appointment  of  a 
commission  to  induce  experimental  psychologists,  who  are  best  equipped 
to  discover  telepathy,  to  take  up  the  investigation  in  laboratories  all  over 
the  world.  Whenever  one  finds  success,  let  him  pass  on  the  "sensitive" 
from  one  laboratory  to  another,  until  it  is  agreed  that  fraud  and  error 
are  eliminated  and  telepathy  is  established  as  either  a  fact  or  a  delusion. 


86  Jastrow,  Jos. :    Fact  and  Fable  in  Psychology.     Boston,  1900. 

86  Notably  in  Clark  and  Cornell. 

87  The   Unpopular  Review,  Jan.-Mch.   1917,  7:210. 

88  The    Hermit    of    Prague :     Materialism    and    telepathy.      Bedrock,    1914, 
2:423-434- 


EXPERIMENTS  ON  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 


Since  1882,  when  organized  investigation  of  telepathy  began,  prom- 
inent investigators  and  students  of  psychical  phenomena  have  suggested 
that  this  super-normal  process  is  a  common  faculty  shared  by  all  men. 

F.  W.  H.  Myers,  1884: 

If  we  find  telepathy  in  mesmeric  and  spontaneous  trance,  we  may  infer  that 
it  is  not  inseparably  linked  with  the  ordinary  stream  of  normal  consciousness.  If 
it  appears  as  an  element  of  consciousness  or  quasi-consciousness  of  abnormal 
states,  which  themselves  form  the  mere  lacunae  in  the  main  life-memory,  it  may 
be  surmised  to  exist  beneath  the  threshold  of  consciousness  in  normal  states  alsa. 
(p.  220). 89 

Charles  Richet,  1884: 

La  suggestion  mentale  est  l'influence  que  la  pensee  d'un  individu  exerce  dans 
un  sens  determine,  sans  phenomene  exterieur  appreciable  a  nos  sens,  sur  la  pen- 
see  d'un  individu  voisin.     (p.  615). 

De  ces  chiffres,  de  ces  experiences  peuvent,  je  crois,  se  deduire,  en  toute 
rigueur,  cette  conclusion:  Chez  des  personnes  adultes,  en  bonne  sante,  non  hyno- 
tisees,  ni  hynotisables,  il  est  possible  que  la  suggestion  mentale  se  fasse  sentir. 
Cette  suggestion  mentale  est  meme,  dans  une  certaine  mesure,  probable ;  mais  avec 
un  degre  de  probability  qui  ne  depasse  guere  1/16  (1/10?).     (p.  632). 90 

Edmund  Gurney,  in  1886: 

If  it  [telepathy]  exists,  we  have  no  reason  to  expect  it  to  be  extremely  un- 
common;  on  the  contrary,  we  should  rather  expect  to  find  an  appreciable  degree 
of  it  tolerably  widely  diffused.900 

Bergson,  1913 : 

If  telepathy  is  a  real  fact,  it  is  a  fact  that  is  capable  of  being  repeated  indefi- 
nitely. I  go  further:  if  telepathy  is  a  real  fact,  it  is  very  possible  that  it  is  oper- 
ating at  every  moment  and  everywhere,  but  with  too  little  intensity  to  be  noticed, 
or  else  it  is  operating  in  the  presence  of  obstacles  which  neutralize  the  effect  at 
the  same  moment  that  it  manifests  itself,     (p.  160).91 


»9  Myers,  F.  W.  H. :    On  a  telepathic  explanation  of  some  so-called  spiritual- 
istic phenomena.     Proceedings  S.P.R.,  1884,  2:217-237. 

"Richet,  Charles:    La  suggestion  mentale  et  le  calcul  des  probability.     Re- 
vue Philosophique.    Paris,  1884,  18:609-674. 

900  Phantasms  of  the  Living,  vol.  I,  pp.  84-5. 

"Bergson,  Henri:    Presidential  address  (before  the  S.  P.  R.),  delivered  May 
28,  1913.    Proceedings  S.P.R.,  I9'4,  27:157-175- 

29 


30  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

Consequently,  they  have  frequently  urged,  as  the  reader  has  perhaps 
noted  in  the  quotations  some  pages  above,  continued  experimentation 
with  normal  subjects.     For  example,  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  in  1909,  wrote: 

Another  thing  on  which  I  should  value  experiments  is  the  detection  of  slight 
traces  of  telepathic  power  in  quite  normal  persons — in  the  average  man  for  in- 
stance, or,  rather  more  likely  perhaps,  in  the  average  child.  The  power  of  receiv- 
ing telepathic  impressions  may  be  a  rare  faculty  existing  only  in  a  few  individuals, 
and  in  them  fully  developed ;  but  it  is  equally  possible,  and,  if  one  may  say  so, 
more  likely,  that  what  we  see  in  them  is  but  an  intensification  of  a  power  which 
exists  in  every  one  as  a  germ  or  nucleus.  If  such  should  be  the  fact,  it  behooves 
us  to  know  it ;  and  its  recognition  would  do  more  to  spread  a  general  belief  in  the 
fact  of  telepathy — a  belief  by  no  means  as  yet  universally  or  even  widely  spread — 
than  almost  anything  else.     (pp.  32-3).92 

The  investigations  included  in  Part  I  were  designed  primarily  to 
put  this  hypothesis  to  further  test.  Other,  subsidiary,  aims  were  met 
through  the  detail  of  method  employed,  and  will  be  found  stated  in  the 
introductory  paragraphs  to  each  division.  The  following  table  shows 
the  number  of  reagents  (percipients)  employed,  the  nature  of  the  re- 
agent, the  material  guessed  at,  and  the  number  of  experiments : 


Division 

Number  of 

Nature  of 

Material  guessed  at 

Number  of 

Reagents 

Reagents 

Experiments 

I 

1 

Normal 

Lotto-Block  Numbers 

1000 

II 

100 

" 

Playing  Cards 

1 0000 

5 

If 

(Corneal  reflection) 

500 

15 

"Psychic" 

" 

1000 

III 

24 

145 

Normal 

"Staring" 

2400 

Totals 

14900 

92  Lodge,  Oliver :    The  Survival  of  Man,  a  study  in  unrecognized  human  fac- 
ulty.    New  York,  1909. 


GUESSING    OF    LOTTO-BLOCK    NUMBERS  31 


I.  GUESSING  OF  LOTTO-BLOCK  NUMBERS.93 
Introduction. 

Quotations  from  authoritative  sources  have  already  been  offered  the 
reader  for  the  purpose  of  acquainting  him  with  the  present  unsettled 
status  of  the  telepathic  hypothesis,  but  no  effort  has  been  made  to  place 
before  him  the  evidence  upon  which  to  exercise  his  own  judgment. 

It  will  be  recalled  that  experimental  evidence  in  favor  of  the  hy- 
pothesis is  regarded  as  imposing  but  not  readily  acceptable.  Two  rea- 
sons for  caution  may  be  mentioned :  ( i )  The  hypothesis  not  being  con- 
sistent with  a  psychological  law  which  we  may  call  "the  principle  of  the 
sensorial  gateway,"  must  be  supported  by  evidence  sufficiently  over- 
whelming to  controvert  that  law  in  order  to  become  acceptable ;  (2) 
Trustworthy  negative  results  already  published  are  equally  imposing, 
with  respect,  at  least,  to  the  question  of  the  general  distribution  of  the 
telepathic  function. 

The  reader  may  get  a  fairly  accurate  idea  of  the  present  situation 
from  the  following  series  of  researches  and  their  resultant  criticisms : 

( 1 )  Extensive  experimentation  si  conducted  by  Mrs.  Henry  Sidg- 
wick  upon  Lotto-Block  guessing  by  hypnotized  subjects,  yielded  results 
favorable  for  thought-transference.  If  the  results  of  good  and  bad  days 
are  combined  and  the  two  digits  of  each  number  counted  as  separate 
numbers,  (as  in  Table  VII,  p.  168),  the  Right  cases  are  30%  of  the 
total  1356  guesses,  as  against  a  probability  of  about  11%  ;  but  if  the  re- 
sults of  good  days  are  considered  separately,  for  two  reagents  (P.  and 
T.)  we  get95  27%  Right  cases  on  the  two-place  numbers  out  of  374  ex- 
periments, as  against  the  probability  of  1.23%.  The  impressions  seemed 
to  come  in  visual  form,  yet  the  sense  of  sight  could  not  have  been  oper- 
ative. In  a  discussion  of  the  possible  contribution  of  the  senses,  all 
seemed  to  be  ruled  out;  the  least  improbable,  in  case  any  could  have 
been  active,  was  said  to  be  that  of  hearing,  made  effective  through  the 


93  Conducted  during  the  year  1912-13. 

94  Sidgwick,  Professor  and  Mrs.,  and  Smith,  G.  A. :    Experiments  in  thought- 
transference.     Proceedings  S.P.R.,  1889-90,  6:128-170. 

Sidgwick,  Mrs.   Henry,  and  Johnson,   Miss  Alice:    Experiments   in  thought- 
transference.    Proceedings  S.P.R.,  1892,  8:536-596. 

95  From  Tables  I  and  II,  op.  cit.,  pp.  146,  150. 


32  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

unconscious  whispering  on  the  part  of  the  agent;  but  tables  failed  to 
show  this  sense  operative,  since  there  was  no  heaping  up  of  errors  ac- 
cording to  the  similarity  of  sounds  of  the  digits. 

(2)  Hansen  and  Lehmann,96  taking  the  cue  of  auditory  communica- 
tion, conducted  a  similar  investigation  on  Lotto-Block  guessing,  chang- 
ing the  conditions  of  experimentation  to  test  its  efficacy ;  large  parabolic 
reflectors  which  augmented  the  intensity  of  the  sound  fourteen  times, 
were  set  up  with  axes  coinciding  and  foci  a  meter  apart ;  the  agent  sat 
facing  his  reflector,  his  mouth  at  its  focus,  and  permitted  himself  to  rep- 
resent the  number  to  himself  in  inner  speech  in  a  way  which  he  calls  in- 
voluntary whispering  (unwillkiirliches  Fliistern)  ;  to  a  bystander  neither 
sound  nor  movement  of  the  closed  mouth  and  lips  was  observable.  The 
percipient,  in  the  normal  state  and  sitting  with  his  ear  at  the  focus  of 
his  reflector,  was  influenced  in  his  guessing  so  that  in  86  and  80  experi- 
ments in  which  the  chances  were  1:1.2,  34%  and  32%  respectively  of 
the  guesses  were  correct ;  and,  when  the  digits  were  combined,  the  prob- 
ability being  about  11%,  there  were  54%  Right  cases  in  the  1000  guesses. 
They  compared  the  errors  in  this  series  with  those  in  the  series  of 
guesses  upon  two-place  numbers  presented  visually  by  a  tachistoscope 
so  quickly  as  to  remain  indefinite,  together  with  those  of  the  Sidgwick 
experimentation,  and  concluded  that  the  results  of  the  latter  were  un- 
doubtedly owing  to  involuntary  whispering.  The  hyperaesthesia  of  the 
hypnotized  reagents  and  their  favorable  positions  for  sound  perception 
were  conditions  said  to  be  accountable  for  success  even  when  the  agent 
and  percipient  sat  in  different  rooms. 

(3)  Critique  of  the  latter  by  Professor  Sidgwick97  and  by  Profes- 
sor James.98  The  former  pointed  out  that  (a)  by  trial  with  a  reagent 
practiced  in  perceiving  faint  whispers,  and  by  watching  the  former 
agent  for  indications  of  movement  of  the  vocal  organs  in  the  submaxil- 
lary regions,  no  involuntary  whispering  could  be  detected,  (b)  Owing 
to  faulty  methods  of  comparison  of  errors,  Hansen  and  Lehmann's  con- 
clusions are  "quite  inconclusive,"  since  the  agreements  of  the  most  fre- 


86  Hansen,  F.  C.  C,  und  Lehmann,  Alfred:  Ueber  unwillkiirliches  Fliistern. 
Philosophische  Studien,  1895,  11:471-530. 

87  Sidgwick,  Professor  Henry :  Involuntary  whispering  considered  in  relation 
to  experiments  in  thought-transference.    Proceedings  S.P.R.,  1896-97,  12:298-315. 

88  James,  Wm. :  Review  of  Hansen  and  Lehmann's  work,  in  Psychological 
Revieiv,  1896,  3:98-100;  see  also,  review  of  Sidgwick's  critique,  Psychological  Re- 
view, 4:654-5,  and  Lehmann  and  Hansen  on  the  telepathic  problem.  Science, 
1898,  8:956. 


GUESSING   OF    LOTTO-BLOCK    NUMBERS  33 

quent  substitutions  between  the  results  of  the  Sidgwick  experimentation 
and  the  results  of  a  series  in  which  the  agent  and  percipient  were  lo- 
cated in  different  houses,  in  which  the  correct  guesses  could  be  regarded 
as  governed  by  pure  chance,  and  in  which  the  whispering  could  not  be 
effective,  are  as  close  as  between  the  former  and  the  results  of  the  Han- 
sen and  Lehmann  experimentation,  (c)  Involuntary  whispering  could 
not  have  been  instrumental  to  the  success  of  the  experiments  in  which 
the  agent  and  percipient  were  separated  by  a  closed  door  and  a  consid- 
erable space  (10  to  20  feet). 

James  agrees  with  Sidgwick  that  Hansen  and  Lehmann  did  not 
prove  their  point ;  he  reports  that  he  made  up  1000  guesses  on  two- 
place  numbers,  under  the  condition  of  whispering  with  lips  closed,  and 
found  that  substitutions  do  not  agree  more  closely  with  the  Sidgwick 
results  than  with  chance.  He  notes  that  Parish  "  also  agrees  with  Sidg- 
wick. 

(4)  Lehmann  wrote  in  reply  to  James's  inquiry  asking  him  what  he 
himself  thought  of  his  conclusions  in  the  light  of  the  criticisms  in  ques- 
tion : 

"Your  own  as  well  as  Professor  Sidgwick's  experiments  and  com- 
putations prove  beyond  a  doubt  that  play  of  chance  had  thrown  into  my 
hands  a  result  distinctly  too  favorable  to  my  theory ;  and  that  the  said 
theory  is  consequently  not  yet  established   (bewiesen)."  10° 

(5)  Lehmann,  in  a  recently  revised  work,101  still  holds  to  his  "Un- 
willkiirliches  Fliistern"  hypothesis  as  being  sufficiently  proved  to  hold 
for  the  Sidgwick  results ;  but  grants  Professor  Sidgwick,  for  the  suc- 
cess of  the  experiments  in  which  agent  and  percipient  were  separated 
by  a  door  and  a  considerable  distance,  another  factor:  "Andere  Um- 
stande  fur  eine  solche  Telepathie  sprechen,  deren  Natur  noch  ganzlich 
unbekannt  ist" ;  namely,  subliminal  impressions,  etc.,  which  he  discusses 
in  Kapitel  34  under  the  title  of  "Das  Eingreifen  des  Unbewussten  in  das 
Bewusstsein."     (p.  512). 

The  results  favorable  for  thought-transference  still  stand  unex- 
plained.    It  is  true  that  there  have  been  from  the  earliest  researches 


88  Parish,    Edmund :     Hallucinations   and    Illusions.     New    York :     Scribners, 
'897,  p.  320,  note. 

i<">  lames :     Messrs.    Lehmann    and    Hansen    on    telepathy.      Science,    1899, 

9:654-5- 

101  Lehmann,  Alfred :    Auberglaube  und  Zauberei.    2te  Auf.,  Stuttgart :    Enke, 
1908,  p.  464. 


34  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

critics  102  who  have  not  wearied  in  pointing  out  errors  of  experimenta- 
tion and  observation  to  which  the  favorable  results  are  probably  due. 
But  in  spite  of  illuminating  knowledge  of  unconscious  muscular  activity, 
subliminal  impressions,  suggestion,  mental  habits,  variability  of  experi- 
mental chance,  etc.,  there  has  been  no  thorough-going  research  by  psy- 
chologists, besides  the  abortive  one  by  Hansen  and  Lehmann,  to  deter- 
mine the  conditions  and  processes  responsible  for  results  favorable  for 
thought-transference  without  contact. 

It  would  be  gratifying  to  know  whether  the  percipient  is  successful 
only  when  in  an  abnormal  condition  as  in  hypnosis  or  trance,  or  has 
some  advantage  for  subliminal  impression  from  the  reflection  of  the 
cornea  or  vibrations  of  the  tympanic  membrane  (if  such  occur  with 
strong  auditory  imagery  or  with  osseous  disturbance  accompanying  kin- 
aesthetic  imagery — one  of  which  is  suggested  by  the  finding  of  Ab- 
bott's 103  investigation  of  the  phenomena  of  a  certain  trumpet  medium). 

Richet  at  one  time  was  quite  confident  that  the  equivalent  of 
thought  transference,  "suggestion  mentale,"  was  to  a  small  degree  (3% 
to  10%)  a  common  human  capacity.  But  Preyer 104  showed  that  the 
deviations  from  probability  upon  which  Richet  had  based  his  conclusions 
are  not  only  equalled  but  surpassed  by  experimental  chance  (in  lottery 
drawings  in  series  of  equal  length  to  that  of  Richet).  And  the  11,130 
guesses  upon  digits,  by  27  different  percipients,  collected  by  the  Commit- 
tee on  Thought-Trans ference,  of  the  American  S.  P.  R.,  indicated  by 
their  10.1770  of  Right  cases,  as  against  the  10%  of  theoretical  probabil- 
ity, that  Richet  was  probably  in  error.  James,105  in  his  presidential 
address  before  the  S.  P.  R.,  said  of  Richet's  supposition:  "I  am  inclined 
to  think  [it  is]  not  very  well  substantiated.  Thought-transference  may 
involve  a  critical  point,  as  physicists  call  it,  which  is  passed  only  when 
certain  psychic  conditions  are  realized,  and  otherwise  not  reached  at  all — 
just  as  a  big  conflagration  will  break  out  at  a  certain  temperature,  below 
which  no  conflagration  whatever,  big  or  little,  can  occur."  (p.  4).  And 
Lehmann,  in  his  chapter  "Das  Gedankenlesen  und  die  Gedankeniiber- 
tragung,"   says :    "Aus   spater  zu  erortenden   Griinden   ist   aller   Wahr- 


10-  Among     others,     Preyer,     Baird,     Braid,    Carpenter,     Morselli,    Vaschide, 
Marbe,  Jastrow,  Hall,  Tanner. 

103  Abbott,  David  P. :    The  history  of  a  strange  case.     Open  Court,  June  1908. 

104  Preyer,  W. :    Die  Erklarung  des  Gedankenlesens.     Leipzig:    Grieben,  1886, 
p.  70. 

105  James:    Address  by  the  president.     Proceedings  S.P.R.,  1896-97,  12:2-10. 


GUESSING   OF    LOTTO-BLOCK    NUMBERS  35 

scheinlichkeit  nach  eine  Mitwirkung  der  telepathischen  Krafte  indes  nur 
dann  anzunehmen,  wenn  der  Empf anger  hypnotisiert  ist  oder  sich  in 
einem  ahnlichen  Zustande  befindet."     (p.  464) -106 

The  object  of  this  division  of  our  experimentation  is  to  get  a 
"norm"  (or  standard  measure)  for  normal  persons,  with  which  we  may 
compare  results  from  "sensitives."  The  subjective  conditions  of  guess- 
ing are  scrutinized,  and  by  carrying  on  "control"  experiments  we  hope 
to  establish  an  inductive  probability  with  which  we  may  compare  our 
results  as  well  as  with  the  theoretical  probability. 

Method. 

Our  blocks  are  of  light  hard  wood,  15  mm.  in  diameter,  8  mm. 
high,  and  the  black  Arabic  numerals  are  printed  in  heavily  shaded  Ro- 
man type,  8  mm.  high.  As  in  the  former  researches,  the  two-place  num- 
bers up  to  and  including  90  were  used. 

The  reagent  (percipient)  sat  in  an  arm-leaf  chair  with  his  back  to 
the  experimenter  (agent),  and  after  each  experiment  (each  guess  of  a 
double  number)  noted  introspections  in  a  tabulated  form  under  the  fol- 
lowing headings:  (a)  Was  the  mind  in  a  thoroughly  receptive  mood? 
(b)  Grade  of  certainty  of  judgment,  or  vividness  of  imagery,  (c)  Kind 
of  impression  (visual,  auditory,  or  kinaesthetic),  {d)  Temporal  course 
of  the  impression  (sudden  or  slow  in  appearance,  early  in  the  period  or 
late,  persistent,  recurring),  (e)  Spatial  attributes  (where  apparently  lo- 
cated). The  grading  was  to  be  A,  B,  C,  D,  in  descending  order;  and 
in  case  certainty  of  judgment  differed  from  vividness  of  imagery,  two 
grades  were  to  be  given. 

The  period  during  which  the  reagent  was  to  seek  an  impression  of 
some  number  from  10  to  90,  was  at  first  20  seconds,  but  upon  the  re- 
quest of  the  reagent  was  later  reduced  to  15  seconds.  The  reagent  dur- 
ing this  period  shaded  his  closed  eyes  with  his  hand,  rested  his  head 
comfortably  with  elbow  upon  the  arm  of  the  chair,  and  sought  a  quiet, 
receptive  state  of  mind.  He  knew  that  the  block  might  not  be  looked 
at  by  the  experimenter  until  after  his  guess  was  recorded  by  himself, 
and  that  if  its  number  was  held  in  imagery  the  latter  might  be  visual, 
kinaesthetic,  or  auditory,  or  combinations  of  these. 

The  experimenter  sat  facing  the  reagent's  back,  drew  from  a  bag  a 
Lotto-Block,  and,  if  the  numbered  side  came  up,  made  ready  to  hold  it 


106  Lehmann :  Aberglaube  und  Zauberei,  pp.  458-465. 


36  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

in  some  kind  of  vivid  imagery,  shook  the  dice-box,  tapped  with  his  pen- 
cil once  to  inform  the  reagent  that  the  period  of  impression  began,  then 
held  or  did  not  hold  imagery  of  the  number;  and  after  15  seconds 
tapped  twice  to  close  the  period  of  impression.  When  the  numbered 
side  of  the  block  came  up,  imagery  was  held  according  to  the  face  cast 
by  the  die,  as  follows:  (1)  Visual  impression;  (2)  Kinaesthetic  image 
(care  being  taken  to  avoid  an  auditory  accompaniment,  and  also  any 
movements  of  pronunciation  great  enough  to  be  felt;  (3)  Auditory  im- 
agery (stripped  of  its  usual  kinaesthetic  accompaniment)  ;  (4)  Com- 
bination of  1  and  2;  (5)  of  1  and  3;  (6)  of  2  and  3.  In  order  that 
there  would  be  no  confusion,  the  experimenter  kept  before  him  a  card 
with  the  kinds  of  impressions,  or  imagery,  tabulated  by  number,  upon  it. 
In  case  the  blank  side  of  the  block  was  drawn,  the  dice-box  was  shaken, 
and  the  experiment  progressed  in  every  way  like  its  alternate ;  except 
that  the  experimenter  refrained  from  thinking  of  numbers  (by  musing 
upon  an  ocean  scene).  After  the  reagent  had  recorded  his  guess  and 
while  he  was  writing  his  introspections,  the  experimenter  recorded  the 
block-number,  and  the  face  of  the  die,  and  indicated  whether  the  num- 
ber was  imaged.  Accompanying  the  imaging  of  the  number  was  a  de- 
termined set  of  the  will  that  it  be  communicated  to  the  reagent.  The 
distance  between  experimenter  and  reagent  was  changed  every  20  ex- 
periments, irregularly  over  the  following  distances  in  meters:  I,  2,  3, 
4.6,  6,  10. 

The  reagent  was  given  all  the  time  he  wished  to  note  his  introspec- 
tions, which  at  the  beginning  was  up  to  about  10  minutes ;  after  he  be- 
came more  familiar  with  the  procedure  the  time  settled  down  to  half  a 
minute,  and  the  rate  of  the  experiments  became  one  a  minute.  A  sitting 
was  never  continued  after  the  fatigue  point  had  been  reached ;  the  num- 
ber of  experiments  ranged  from  20  to  50,  but  was  rarely  over  30  during 
the  first  half  of  the  experimentation.  The  sittings  took  place  in  the  first 
hour  of  the  afternoon,  on  alternate  days,  three  times  a  week.  The  ex- 
periments numbered  1000.  The  conditions  of  quiet  and  regularity  of 
procedure  usual  in  the  psychological  laboratory  obtained.  Neither  ex- 
perimenter nor  reagent  knew  how  the  results  were  coming  out  until  the 
whole  ten  series  had  been  concluded. 

The  reagent,  Harold  A.  Hughes,  registering  from  Massachusetts, 
was  a  major  in  the  Department  of  Psychology,  and  was  doing  advanced 
laboratory  work.  He  is  versatile  and  responsive  by  nature.  His  replies 
to  a  questionnaire  record  that  (a)  He  sometimes  has  the  feeling  of  be- 


GUESSING   OF    LOTTO-BLOCK    NUMBERS  37 

ing  stared  at,  with  the  conviction  that  the  feeling  can  be  relied  upon; 
(b)  He  has  not  had  premonitions  of  important  events,  but  knows  per- 
sons who  have  had;  (c)  He  has  mental  pictures  of  coming  or  distant 
events,  and  (d)  he  sees  pictures  in  water-glasses,  etc.;  (<?)  He  has 
found  that  he  can  cause  a  person  in  front  of  him  in  an  audience  to  turn 
around  by  "willing"  it;  (/)  He  has  never  been  hypnotized,  (a)  and 
(e)  testify  to  his  belief  in  his  own  power  in  a  phase  of  telepathic  ex- 
perience, and  (b)  supports  (a)  and  (e)  in  indicating  his  belief  in  tele- 
pathic phenomena;  (c)  and  (d)  indicate  probably  nothing  more  than 
strong  visual  imagery.  This  student  seemed,  therefore,  a  good  reagent 
for  our  purpose.  Nothing  was  wanting  in  the  seriousness  and  faithful- 
ness with  which  he  carried  forth  his  end  of  the  research. 

The  favorable  state  of  mind  of  the  reagent  during  the  interval 
given  for  impression  can  be  seen  from  his  written  description :  "When 
the  signal  came  I  made  my  mind  a  blank  and  just  waited  for  a  number 
to  be  impressed  upon  me.  ...  I  did  not  consider  different  alternatives, 
nor  did  I  try  to  'guess'  some  number.  I  just  let  some  number  enter  my 
mind — without  trying  in  the  least  to  make  it  any  certain  number." 

The  experimenter  (the  writer)  took  his  advanced  work  in  science 
in  psychology,  from  which  department  he  has  received  the  higher  de- 
grees, and  has  had  considerable  experience  in  the  laboratory,  both  as 
reagent  and  as  experimenter.  While  at  a  small  college  he  made  some 
experiments,  during  February  1891,  in  hypnotism  (then  known  to  him 
as  Mesmerism),  and  the  records  of  his  diary  support  his  memory  to  the 
effect  that  experiments  in  telepathy  and  clairvoyance  were  successful. 
He  had  ten  subjects,  some  of  whom  were  hypnotized  a  half-dozen  times. 
But  that  was  before  he  had  received  any  training  in  science,  and  he 
realizes  that  he  was  competent  neither  as  an  experimenter  nor  as  an  ob- 
server, and  he  is  therefore  somewhat  agnostic  as  to  the  results  of  his 
experimentation ;  yet,  when  he  re-reads  his  notes,  he  cannot  avoid  the 
conviction  that  here  is  a  worthy  field  for  scientific  investigation.  His 
former  success  has  inspired  him  with  confidence  in  his  power  to  main- 
tain the  psychical  conditions  of  an  agent,  favorable  for  thought-trans- 
ference ;  it  was  in  this  spirit  that  he  performed  his  part  of  the  present 
experimentation. 


38 


THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 


Results. 

The  numerical  results  were  tabulated  under  the  headings  of  the 
"Number  Not  Imaged"  and  "Number  Imaged"  experiments.  It  is  to 
be  noted  therefore  that  the  averages  of  the  "Number  Imaged"  experi- 
ments may  be  compared  with  those  of  an  Experimental  Probability  as 
well  as  with  the  Theoretical  Probability  in  order  to  determine  whether 
any  cause  besides  chance  has  been  operative  toward  Right  cases. 

The  complete  and  partial  successes  for  each  of  the  10  Series,  of 
ioo  experiments  each,  are  tabulated  in  Tables  I  and  II : 


TABLE  I 

.     NUMBER  NOT  IMAGED. 

Series 

Whole  No. 

Ten's 

Unit's 

Ten's  for 

Unit's 

for  Trans- 

Total 

of  IOO 

Correct 

Correct 

Correct 

Unit's 

Ten' 

s        posed 

N.  I. 

/. 

i 

8 

9 

0 

2 

0 

49 

2. 

i 

4 

I 

2 

3 

I 

5i 

3- 

i 

4 

5 

4 

4 

I 

57 

4- 

0 

5 

4 

3 

3 

I 

47 

S- 

0 

8 

2 

7 

4 

0 

48 

6. 

0 

3 

5 

3 

3 

i 

54 

7- 

0 

2 

2 

4 

4 

0 

41 

8. 

0 

s 

2 

4 

7 

0 

47 

P. 

2 

6 

6 

4 

4 

0 

5i 

10. 

2 

6 

6 

4 

4 

0 

5i 

Totals 


50 


40 


37 


40 


502 


TABLE  II.     NUMBER  IMAGED. 


Series 

Whole  No. 

Ten's 

Unit's 

Ten's  for  Unit's  for  Trans- 

Total 

of  IOO 

Correct 

Correct 

Correct 

Unit's 

Ten's 

posed 

I. 

/. 

2 

4 

4 

0 

1 

0 

5i 

2. 

0 

5 

8 

2 

5 

0 

49 

3- 

1 

8 

1 

3 

2 

1 

43 

4- 

1 

7 

4 

4 

4 

0 

53 

5- 

0 

8 

4 

2 

1 

52 

6. 

1 

5 

3 

6 

3 

46 

7- 

0 

7 

5 

6 

2 

59 

8. 

0 

3 

7 

6 

3 

53 

9- 

0 

5 

6 

3 

3 

43 

10. 

0 

7 

4 

1 

6 

0 

49 

Totals 


59 


46 


33 


30 


498 


GUESSING    OF    LOTTO-BLOCK    NUMBERS 


39 


Number  Imaged. 


TABLE  III.     COMPARISON. 

Whole  No.     Ten's      Unit's    Ten's  for  Unit's  for  Trans- 
Correct     Correct    Correct     Unit's        Ten's       posed 


5 
1.00% 


64 
12.8% 

56 
11.1% 

12.5% 


Si 
10.2% 

46 

9-i% 
10.0% 


33 

6.6% 

37 

74% 
6.9% 


30 
6.0% 

40 

8.0% 
6.9% 


6 

1.23% 

4 
0.8  % 
0.85% 


Total 
498 

502 


Number  Not  Imaged.         6 

1.18% 
Probability 1.23% 

The  totals  of  the  second  and  third  columns  of  Table  III  include,  of  course, 
the  totals  of  the  preceding  column,  since  when  a  whole  number  is  correct  both  the 
ten's  and  the  unit's  digits  are  also  correct. 

In  the  calculation  of  Probability,  the  ratios  have  been  changed  to  per  cents. 
A  whole  number  stands  one  chance  in  81  of  being  correct;  a  ten's  digit  I  :8.l,  since 
there  are  but  eight,  each  with  its  ten  units,  and  the  number  go;  a  unit's  digit  1  :io; 
a  ten's  digit  for  a  unit's  digit,  1:14.5,  since  among  the  81  numbers  there  are  25 
which  cannot  be  transposed,  as,  10,  20,  30  .  .  .,  19,  29,  39  .  .  .,11,  22,  33 
.  .  .,  which  reduces  the  chance  of  success  to  56/81  of  1:10;  a  unit's  digit  for  a 
ten's  digit,  also  1:14.5;  for  the  same  reason,  a  transposed  number,  56/81  of  1:81, 
or  1  .117. 

Tables  IV  and  V  show  the  distribution  of  the  guessed  upon  the 
drawn  numbers,  and  are  comparable  with  the  tables  published  by  Mrs. 
Sidgwick  and  Hansen  and  Lehmann,  except  that  these  authors  combined 
the  guesses  on  the  unit's  and  ten's  digits.  We  have  not  done  so  for  the 
reason  that  the  reagent  differed  from  those  of  Mrs.  Sidgwick  in  that  he 
got  his  impressions  as  double  instead  of  single  numbers.  For  the  pur- 
pose of  showing  number  habits  separation  is  desirable,  and,  as  is  indi- 
cated above,  the  probability  ratios  of  the  two  are  different. 


TABLE  IV.     UNIT'S  DIGIT.     NUMBER  NOT  IMAGED. 


Drawn 

0 
/ 

2 

s 

4 
5 
6 

7 
8 

9 
Totals 


Guessed 

I 

0 

/ 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

Total 

5 

4 

8 

10 

5 

3 

3 

4 

3 

3 

48 

5 

3 

6 

2 

5 

4 

9 

6 

5 

6 

Si 

4 

4 

4 

3 

3 

5 

4 

8 

6 

6 

47 

6 

7 

5 

6 

5 

3 

5 

6 

3 

7 

S3 

8 

3 

7 

4 

6 

7 

3 

6 

S 

9 

58 

5 

2 

8 

4 

3 

6 

7 

7 

6 

2 

SO 

5 

6 

5 

4 

4 

5 

3 

3 

3 

3 

42 

9 

6 

8 

7 

3 

5 

9 

5 

2 

9 

62 

2 

3 

10 

S 

1 

4 

S 

5 

4 

3 

42 

7 

7 

3 

2 

7 

4 

4 

7 

4 

4 

49 

56   45   64 


47 


42 


46 


52 


57 


41    52 


502 


40 


THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 


TABLE  V. 

TEN'S 

DIGIT. 

NUMBER 

NOT 

IMAGED. 

Guessed 

'awn 

/ 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

Total 

l 

13 

18 

17 

6 

3 

3 

4 

3 

0 

67 

2 

15 

9 

17 

14 

2 

8 

5 

4 

2 

76 

3 

13 

ii 

14 

ii 

3 

5 

7 

6 

0 

70 

4 

2 

8 

14 

10 

8 

12 

8 

2 

2 

66 

5 

10 

10 

II 

13 

3 

2 

4 

7 

0 

6o 

6 

9 

6 

9 

7 

4 

2 

5 

_2 

2 

46 

7 

15 

14 

II 

10 

9 

3 

4 

I 

I 

68 

8 

8 

12 

6 

7 

4 

5 

3 

1 

0 

46 

9 

i 

0 

i 

0 

0 

0 

i 

0 

0 

3 

Totals 


86        88 


78        36        40        41 


26 


502 


TABLE   VI.    UNIT'S    DIGIT.     NUMBER    IMAGED. 


Drawn 

o 

1 

2 

3 

4 
5 
6 

7 
8 

9 
Totals 


Drawn 

/ 
2 

3 

4 
5 
6 

7 
8 

9 
Totals 


Guessed 

0 

/ 

2 

J 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

6 

8 

9 

7 

7 

5 

3 

7 

5 

8 

4 

4 

5 

7 

9 

7 

8 

3 

3 

13 

6 

2 

4 

6 

5 

2 

5 

5 

2 

1 

7 

6 

4 

5 

4 

5 

3 

3 

9 

2 

8 

6 

5 

2 

10 

1 

5 

5 

4 

1 

4 

3 

3 

4 

1 

6 

4 

10 

6 

4 

3 

3 

11 

8 

2 

5 

4 

4 

4 

3 

7 

4 

12 

3 

4 

4 

4 

8 

6 

5 

5 

8 

6 

2 

4 

4 

3 

2 

0 

3 

8 

6 

7 

3 

5 

1 

5 

6 

6 

4 

58 


50 


66 


47 


51 


40 


44 


53 


45 


44 


TABLE  VII.     TEN'S  DIGIT.     NUMBER  IMAGED. 


/ 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

S 

9 

4 

10 

13 

9 

4 

5 

6 

1 

1 

9 

18 

12 

10 

2 

6 

5 

8 

1 

9 

10 

12 

12 

4 

4 

5 

7 

0 

6 

'5 

8 

11 

5 

3 

6 

5 

2 

10 

12 

9 

5 

6 

6 

5 

3 

1 

12 

11 

10 

7 

6 

3 

4 

3 

1 

9 

8 

11 

13 

7 

5 

8 

4 

2 

8 

9 

13 

10 

10 

6 

4 

2 

1 

0 

1 

0 

1 

0 

2 

2 

0 

0 

67   94   88   78   44   40   45 


33 


Total 

65 
63 
38 
48 

47 
45 
47 
57 
37 
5i 

498 


Total 

53 
71 
63 
61 

57 
57 
67 
63 
6 

498 


GUESSING    OF    LOTTO-BLOCK    NUMBERS  41 

An  examination  of  Tables  I-III  does  not  warrant  the  conclusion 
that  the  judgments  of  the  reagent  were  influenced  by  the  imagery  in 
the  mind  of  the  experimenter ;  nor  do  the  errors  in  the  Tables  IV-VII 
show  it,  by  similarity  of  sight  or  sound  of  the  digits.  But,  supposing 
that  some  unknown  cause  counteracted  a  telepathic  influence,  and  thus 
kept  it  from  being  shown  in  these  particular  tables,  other  tests  are  at 
hand.  If  there  was  a  transference  of  thought  at  all,  it  is  reasonable  to 
suppose  that  successful  guesses  would  be  positively  correlated  with  the 
high  grades  of  certainty  in  the  "Number  Imaged"  experiments,  but  not 
in  the  "Number  Not  Imaged"  experiments;  that  some  particular  form 
of  imagery  would,  for  this  reagent,  be  more  efficient  than  the  others ; 
that  some  particular  distance  would  be  the  more  favorable ;  and  that  in 
successful  guesses  the  imagery  in  the  mind  of  the  reagent  would  con- 
form in  kind  with  that  in  the  mind  of  the  experimenter. 

If  we  call  Right  cases  the  experiments  in  which  the  whole  number, 
the  ten's  digit,  or  the  unit's  digit,  is  right,  the  two  following  tables  show 
the  relationship  between  Right  cases  and  Certainty  of  guesses. 

Table  VIII  shows  the  distribution  of  the  three  grades  over  the 
"Not  Imaged"  and  the  "Imaged"  experiments  (B  is  the  highest,  D  the 
lowest  grade  of  certainty)  : 

TABLE  VIII. 

B          %  C  %               D          % 

Total  Grades 352  557  91 

R   Cases,  Number  Not  Imaged...        31        8.8%  50  9.0%            14      15.4% 

R     Cases,    Number   Imaged 39       11.1%  62  11.1%              9        9.9% 

Almost  as  many  highly  graded  guesses  (lacking  but  2%)  were 
made  in  the  "Number  Not  Imaged"  experiments. 

Table  IX  shows  the  distribution  of  the  highest  and  lowest  grades 
over  the  three  kinds  of  successes,  for  the  "Number  Not  Imaged"  and 
the  "Number  Imaged"  experiments: 

TABLE  IX. 

Whole  Grand 

Grade      No.      Ten's      Unit's     Total     Total  % 

Number    Not    Imaged B  2  17  12  31  180  17.2 

D  o  9  6  15  50  30.0 

Number  Imaged B  1  26  12  39  172  22.6 

D  1  4  4  9  42  21.4 


42 


THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 


The  greater  number  of  B's  on  the  ten's  digit  successes  in  the  "Num- 
ber Imaged"  experiments  is  the  only  advantage  the  table  shows;  this, 
however,  is  but  moderate,  and  is  probably  offset  by  the  facts  (i)  that 
about  the  same  proportion  of  D's  as  of  B's  have  correlated  with  suc- 
cesses, (2)  that  no  advantage  is  shown  on  the  unit's  digit,  and  (3)  that 
the  grades  of  the  few  complete  successes  are  somewhat  lower  in  the 
"Number  Imaged"  than  in  the  "Number  Not  Imaged"  experiments. 

The  data  seem  to  warrant  the  conclusion  that  Certainty  of  guesses 
does  not  correlate  with  Right  cases. 

Whether  any  sort  of  imagery  was  more  efficient  than  others,  may 
be  determined  by  a  distribution  of  the  Right  cases  over  the  die-spots, 
since  the  latter  determined  the  respective  forms  of  imagery: 


Number  Not  Imaged 1 


Number  Imaged. 


TABLE  X. 

Whole 

Grand 

Die 

No. 

Ten's 

Unit's 

Total 

Total 

% 

/ 

1 

7 

7 

15 

78 

19.2 

s 

13 

7 

20 

75 

26.7 

3 

7 

4 

11 

9i 

12.1 

4 

1 

9 

6 

16 

87 

18.4 

5 

1 

7 

6 

14 

86 

16.3 

6 

3 

7 

10 

20 

85 

23-5 

1 

1 

9 

5 

15 

81 

18.5 

2 

9 

6 

IS 

95 

15.8 

3 

8 

10 

18 

84 

21.4 

4 

16 

8 

24 

85 

28.2 

5 

3 

11 

11 

25 

82 

30.5 

6 

1 

6 

6 

13 

71 

18.3 

Although  the  per  cents  show  some  variation,  it  appears  to  be  gov- 
erned by  chance :  the  4-spot  and  the  5~sPot  seem  to  be  more  efficient, 
but  the  same  might  be  said  of  the  2-spot  in  the  "Number  Not  Imaged" 
experiments.  Since  the  latter  is  obviously  a  chance  variation,  the  for- 
mer, being  but  slightly  larger,  must  be  held  to  be  probably  chance  vari- 
ations also.  The  imagery  determined  by  the  4-spot  and  the  5-spot  was, 
respectively  (Visual  impression)  -f-  (Kinaesthetic  image)  and  (Visual 
impression)  -|-  (Auditory  image)  ;  since  the  visual  impression  was  com- 
mon to  both,  one  would  expect  its  efficiency  alone  to  be  greater  than 
that  of  the  Kinaesthetic  or  Auditory  imagery  alone,  and  1  is  but  inter- 
mediate between  2  and  3,  and  is  lower  than  1,  2,  and  6,  in  the  upper  part 
of  the  table ;  moreover,  the  experimenter  found  5  the  most  difficult  im- 
agery to  hold  vividly,  as  any  one  else  probably  will  if  he  tries  it.     The 


GUESSING  OF  LOTTO-BLOCK  NUMBERS  43 

imagery  Hansen  and  Lehmann  tried  to  prove  accountable  for  the  suc- 
cesses in  Mrs.  Sidgwick's  research  is  2,  which  in  the  table  is  correlated 
with  the  lowest  per  cent.  The  experimenter,  being  of  the  kinaesthetic 
type,  and  finding  that  imagery  more  easily  held  in  a  vivid  form,  might 
reasonably  have  expected  the  highest  per  cent  on  2. 

We  are  probably  safe  in  concluding  that  no  particular  form  of  im- 
agery was  more  efficient  than  any  other  in  conditioning  Right  cases. 

Whether  some  particular  distance  was  most  favorable  may  be  de- 
termined from  the  following  table,  which  distributes  the  Right  cases 
over  the  six  distances  used : 

TABLE  XI. 

Meters               1            2  3  4.6  6            10 

Number  Not  Imaged — total  cases 89  34  94  71  104  no 

— total  right  cases..      22           4  23  16  16  16 

Percent 24.7  118  24.5  22.5  15.4  14.6 

Number  Imaged — total  cases 91         26         86       109  96  90 

— total  right  cases 18  7         16         26  23  18 

Per  cent 19.8      26.9      18.6      23.9        24.0        20.0 

But  few  experiments  were  made  on  the  2-meter  mark,  and  these 
per  cents  may  be  disregarded.  If  any  distance  is  more  favorable  than 
another  it  is  6  meters ;  but  as  much  advantage  is  shown  by  1  meter  in 
the  "Number  Not  Imaged"  experiments.  The  latter  being  a  chance 
variation,  the  former  probably  is  also. 

We  may  probably  safely  conclude  that  no  particular  distance  was 
the  more  favorable  for  Right  cases. 

Number  Habits. 

As  has  been  pointed  out  by  Mrs.  Sidgwick,107  number  habits  on  the 
part  of  the  reagent  alone  cannot,  except  by  chance,  augment  the  num- 
ber of  Right  cases :  they  would  even  resist  a  telepathic  influence  and 
tend  to  keep  it  from  operating  in  the  process  of  guessing  and  from  be- 
ing shown  in  the  numerical  results.  They  are  of  interest,  however,  in 
revealing  some  of  the  subjective  conditions  of  guessing,  on  the  part  of 
individual  reagents. 

An  inspection  of  Tables  IV-VII  reveals  the  fact  that  guesses  were 
not  distributed  equally  on  the  double  numbers.     The  totals  of  the  re- 


107  Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  6 :17c 


44 


THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 


agent's  guesses  below  50  are  much  greater  than  above  50.  (See  Tables 
V  and  VII).    The  ratios  are : 

Not   Imaged 327:162  =  2.02 

Imaged   352 1143  =  2.46 

The  30's  in  the  "Number  Not  Imaged"  and  the  20's  in  the  "Number 
Imaged"  experiments  were  guessed  the  more  often ;  while  the  average 
number  of  guesses  per  number  is  6,  of  the   forty  numbers  below   50 

Not  Iaogvd  (602  Caaeo) 

■-tLeee  Isn  a  Unit's 


1234667         86  0163456        7e° 


Imaged     (496  Cases) 

Bnlt'B 


Plate  II.—  Showing  Mental  Habit  in  the  Guessing  of  Two-place  Numbers. 
Guesses  are  represented  by  broken  lines;    drawings  by  solid  lines. 

twenty-seven  in  the  "Number  Not  Imaged"  experiments,  and  twenty- 
one  in  the  "Number  Imaged"  experiments,  were  guessed  over  7  times; 
the  number  37  in  the  former  was  guessed  16  times,  the  number  32  in 
the  latter  15  times;  in  the  former  the  numbers  68  and  86,  and  in  the 
latter  the  number  10,  were  not  guessed  at  all. 

Of  the  unit's  digits.  2  and  7,  in  the  order  named,  show  a  slight 
preference.  Plate  II  shows  the  difference  between  the  guessing  and  the 
drawing  of  the  digits. 


guessing  of  lotto-block  numbers  45 

Imagery. 
As  was  noted  above,  the  reagent  knew  in  what  kinds  of  imagery 
the  experimenter  would  hold  the  numbers.  Whether  it  was  on  this  ac- 
count or  because  he  customarily  has  vivid  imagery  in  different  modes, 
he  differed  from  our  more  naive  reagents  in  recording  three,  and  later 
four,  kinds  of  imagery  as  the  forms  in  which  the  number  came  into  his 
mind.  In  the  4th  100  he  distinguished  Kinaesthetic- Auditory  from  Audi- 
tory, and  fell  off  in  Visual  imagery  from  20%  to  6%  ;  the  Kinaesthetic- 
Auditory  increasing  from  0%  to  21%.  The  following  table  shows  the 
change  that  occurred  in  his  imagery,  as  well  as  its  distribution  over  the 
various  kinds. 


1.  Visual  4.  1  +  2 

2.  Kinaesthetic  5.  1  +  3 

3.  Auditory       6.  2  +  3 


TABLE  XII. 

Kinds  of  Imagery.  .123  4  5  6 

Avg.   of  first  300... 22%     37%    40%  o.  o.        0.3% 

Avg.  4th-ioth  ioo's. .  6%    40%     32%  0.4%  0.1%    22% 

Within  these  two  periods' the  ratios  are  very  uniform,  which  would 
hardly  be  the  case  unless  there  had  been  a  change  in  the  reagent's  im- 
pressions and  the  latter  had  been  pretty  faithfully  described.  The  only 
change  due  to  keener  analysis  of  his  experience  is  the  sorting  out  of  the 
Kin. -A.  images  from  the  Auditory  ones.  The  Kin.-A.  imagery  involves 
imagery  of  movements  of  pronunciation  and  of  the  sound  of  his  own 
voice;  the  Auditory  alone  involved  the  imagery  of  a  voice  (not  his 
own)  whispering  the  number  to  him  or  speaking  it  from  a  position  in 
front  and  to  the  right  or  from  a  point  in  the  top  of  his  head.  The  Vis- 
ual imagery  pictured  the  figures  written  on  a  blackboard  about  a  meter 
and  a  half  in  front,  in  white  2  inches  high,  or  printed  on  small  blocks 
the  size  of  a  dime  (a  ten-cent-piece),  held  in  the  experimenter's  hand. 
Some  variation  from  the  rule  was  the  appearance  of  vivid  memory 
images ;  as  20  on  a  $20  bill,  22  on  a  red  background  (the  front  of  the 
campus  electric  car),  or  the  33  of  the  Hudson  automobile;  these,  how- 
ever, occurred  very  rarely. 

With  respect  to  the  time  and  manner  of  appearance  of  the  imagery, 
tabulation  shows  that  the  Visual  imagery  usually  appeared  suddenly, 
and  in  the  early  part  of  the  period  given  for  the  impression ;  Kin.  im- 
agery changed  by  the  4th  100  from  about  50%  of  the  cases  coming  late 
to  75%  coming  early,  and  it  came  suddenly ;  the  Auditory  changed  in 
the  2d  100  from  about  2/3  early  to  about  2/3  late,  and  it  was  some- 
times slow  in  forming;  the  Kin.-A.  imagery  came  regularly  suddenly 
and  early. 


46  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

Tabulation  of  the  imagery  of  the  successful  guesses  shows  that  the 
kind  of  imagery  in  the  experimenter's  mind  did  not  coincide  with  the 
kind  of  imagery  in  the  reagent's  mind  more  often  in  the  "Number  Im- 
aged" experiments  than  did  the  corresponding  dice-numbers  in  the 
"Number  Not  Imaged"  experiments.  And  special  cases  of  vividness 
calling  for  extra  note  either  fall  upon  experiments  when  the  block  was 
not  looked  at  or  do  not  agree  in  imagery  with  that  held  in  the  experi- 
menter's mind. 

The  feeling  of  certainty  that  the  impression  had  an  objective  source 
seemed  to  depend  upon 

i.  Vividness  of  the  imagery, 

2.  Early  appearance, 

3.  Flashing  out, 

4.  Persistence  or  recurrence. 

This  is  true  even  of  the  memory  images  of  20,  22,  etc.  (It  may  be 
mentioned  in  passing  that  these  special  numbers  were  not  guessed  more 
often  than  their  neighbors.) 

Conclusion. 

Although  the  conditions  of  our  experimentation,  and  the  attitude 
and  training  of  the  reagent,  seemed  favorable  for  thought-transference, 
the  results  of  a  thousand  experiments  indicate  that  the  number  of  suc- 
cessful guesses  is  not  beyond  either  experimental  or  theoretical  prob- 
ability; that  the  feeling  of  certainty  with  which  judgments  are  made 
does  not  correlate  with  Right  cases ;  that  no  particular  form  of  the  ex- 
perimenter's imagery  was  more  efficient  than  others ;  that  no  particular 
distance  was  more  favorable  than  another;  that  in  the  successful  cases 
the  kind  of  imagery  in  the  mind  of  the  reagent  did  not  conform  to  the 
kind  of  imagery  in  the  mind  of  the  experimenter  more  often  than  to 
the  corresponding  die-spots  in  the  experimental  probability  experiments ; 
that  the  reagent  was  successful  in  keeping  his  mind  in  such  a  receptive 
condition  that  impressions  seemed  to  have  an  objective  source ;  and 
that  this  feeling  of  certainty  of  the  chance  of  a  guess  being  right  seems 
to  depend  upon  the  vividness  and  behavior  of  the  imagery  constituting 
the  impression. 

The  results  of  these  series  of  experiments,  then,  in  which  a  reagent, 
in  the  normal  state  and  under  conditions  supposedly  favorable  for 
thought-transference,  made  498  guesses  upon  Lotto-Block  numbers  (from 
10-QO)   when  the  number  was  vividly  imaged  by  the  experimenter,  and 


GUESSING  OF  LOTTO-BLOCK  NUMBERS  47 

502  guesses  when  the  number  was  unknown  to  the  experimenter,  without 
causing  in  the  results  a  significant  deviation  in  either  group  of  experi- 
ments from  theoretical  probability,  support  Professor  James  in  his  judg- 
ment that  Professor  Richet's  hypothesis  to  the  effect  that  thought- 
transference  is  a  common  capacity,  to  be  found  in  any  long  series  of 
guessing  in  the  presence  of  some  one  who  knows  what  is  being  guessed 
at,  is  probably  wrong. 

The  qualitative  results  of  these  experiments,  afforded  by  analyses  of 
introspections,  are  of  psychological  interest  in  establishing  the  fact  that 
normal  persons  have  experiences  which  they  refer  with  varying  degrees 
of  certainty  to  an  objective  source  but  which  in  reality  do  not  depend 
upon  it.  This  tendency  to  project  subjective  experience  is  obviously 
related  to  the  psychical  processes  of  illusion  and  hallucination,  as  an 
incipient  function  to  an  active  one,  and  is  to  be  regarded  as  both  com- 
mon and  normal. 


48  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 


II.  GUESSING  OF  PLAYING-CARDS. 

SERIES  I.  REAGENTS  NORMAL. 
Successful  results  in  card-guessing  by  normal  reagents  (subjects, 
percipients)  have  been  reported  in  not  a  few  experiments  on  Thought- 
Trans  ference ;  notably,  (i)  by  the  Committee  on  Thought-Transfer- 
ence,108  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  in  England,  in  1882, 
who  reported  22  out  of  248  trials  correct,  or  8.87%,  as  against  the  prob- 
ability of  1.92%;  (2)  by  Gurney,  Myers,  and  Podmore,109  in  1886, 
who  reported  4760  successes  out  of  17,653  trials  in  the  guessing  of  suits, 
an  excess  of  347  over  the  most  probable  number,  of  which  the  probabil- 
ity that  it  was  caused  by  chance  alone  was  calculated  by  Edgeworth110 
to  be  .000,000,02,  or,  by  another  method  of  calculation,111  .000,000,000,8; 
(3)  by  Miss  B.  Lindsay,112  who  reported  that  out  of  976  trials  in  the 
guessing  of  six  uncolored  forms  (figures  on  cards),  there  were  made 
198  successses,  "the  odds  against  obtaining  that  degree  of  success  by 
chance  being  1000  to  1,"  or,  the  probability  of  the  success  by  chance,  as 
calculated  by  Edgeworth,113  being  .002 ;  (4)  by  Messrs.  A.  J.  Shilton 
and  G.  T.  Cashmore,114  who  reported  that  out  of  505  trials  in  the  guess- 
ing of  red,  blue,  green,  and  yellow  cards,  261  successes  were  made,  the 
probability  for  an  extra-chance  cause  being  considered  "a  trillion  trillions 
to  1,"  or,  as  calculated  by  Edgeworth,116  .9999  [to  37  places]  ;  (5)  by  the 
Misses  Wingfield,116  who  made  2,624  trials  in  the  guessing  of  two-place 
numbers  (10-99),  trie  cards  being  chosen  at  random  by  the  agent,  and 
reported  275  successes  (not  including  78  cases  in  which  the  right  digits 
were  guessed  in  reverse  order)  as  against  the  most  probable  number  of 
29,  the  probability  for  extra-chance  cause  being  "the  ninth  power  of  a 
trillion  to  1";    (6)  by  Richet,117  in  France,  in  1888-89  and  1889-90,  who 


108  Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  1882-83,  1 :  70  ff. 

109  Phantasms  of  the  Living,  vol.  I,  p.  33. 

110  Vide,  Podmore:     Apparitions  and  Thought-Transference,   1894,  p.  27. 

111  Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  4 :  203. 

112  Phantasms  of  the  Living,  1 :  34. 

113  Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  4 :  203. 

114  Phantasms  of  the  living,  1 :  34. 

115  Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  4:  204. 

116  Phantasms  of  the  Living,  1 :  34. 

117  La  suggestion  mentale  et  le  calcul  des  probabilites.    Revue  Philosophique, 
1884,  i8:6ooff. 


GUESSING  OF   PLAYING-CARDS  49 

from  ii  reagents  got  789  right  guesses  on  the  suit  out  of  2927  trials, 
or  26.99%  118  as  against  the  probability  of  25%,  or,  if  series  of  over  100 
guesses  are  discarded  because  of  the  possible  influence  of  fatigue,  510 
out  of  1833  trials,  or  27.8%  ;119  and  from  782  trials,  17  right  guesses  on 
the  complete  card,  or  2.17%,  as  against  1.92%;  (7)  by  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Brown,120  in  the  United  States,  in  1889,  who  in  1000  guesses  on  the 
number  of  the  card  got  21.9%  right  as  against  10%.  Negative  results 
have  been  reported  by  the  Committee  on  Thought-Transference121  of 
the  American  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  in  1885-89,  who  obtained 
from  5500  guesses  on  the  color  of  the  card,  by  22  reagents,  50.51% 
right  cases,  while  an  experimental  chance  series  of  5150  trials  yielded 
50.35%,  and  probability  is  50%  ;  and  from  4000  guesses  on  the  number 
of  the  card,  10.3%  right  cases  as  against  a  probability  of  10%.  Nega- 
tive results  seem  to  have  been  encountered  in  considerable  numbers  by 
the  (English)  Society  for  Psychical  Research  also,  but,  unfortunately, 
were  not  considered  worthy  of  public  record.122 

"Card-experiments  of  the  above  type  offer  special  conveniences  for 
the  very  extended  trials  which  we  wish  to  see  carried  out :  they  are 
easily  made  and  rapidly  recorded."  123 

Cards  were  turned  to  by  Richet 124  because  they  permitted  a  quanti- 
tative calculation  of  results,  and  were  used  by  the  American  Committee 


118  For  this  result  the  probability  has  been  calculated  by  Edgeworth  to  be 
.008  (Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  4:  202). 

119  For  this  result  Edgeworth  calculates  the  probability  to  be  less  than  .0013. 
(Ibid.,  p.  203). 

120  Proceedings  Am.S.P.R.,  Series  I,  1:322-349. 

121  Idem,  pp.  6  ff. 

122  yidc,  Quotations  from  the  Journal  S.  P.  R.,  on  p.  23,  and  from  Thomas 
on  p.  26.  Where  successful  results  alone  are  regarded  as  interesting,  the  pub- 
lished results  cannot  be  taken  as  indicative  of  the  extent  to  which  the  telepathic 
capacity  is  shared  by  people  in  general.  The  situation  becomes  still  more  critical  for 
the  telepathic  hypothesis  when  psychical-research  writers  are  over-ready  to  impute 
improper  experimental  procedure  to  negative  results,  as  Podmore  appears  to  do  in 
his  reference  to  the  experiments  carried  out  under  the  direction  of  the  American 
Society  for  Psychical  Research :  "But  in  the  absence  of  details  as  to  the  conditions 
under  which  the  experiments  were  made,  no  unfavorable  inference  can  fairly  be 
drawn  from  these  results."  (Apparitions  and  Thought-Transference,  p.  27).  Our 
inductions  will  be  safer  if  all  of  the  results  of  investigations  which  we  have  reason 
to  believe  have  been  intelligently  carried  out  are  available  for  our  examination. 

123  Phantasms  of  the  Living,  1 :  34. 

124  For  his  later  preference  for  playing-cards,  vide,  Proceedings  S.  P.  R., 
1889,  6 :  66. 


50  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

for  the  same  reason.  The  numbers  of  experiments  from  these  two 
more  authoritative  sources  are  extensive,  but  further  work  by  others, 
of  a  similar  kind,  was  strongly  urged  by  Richet  for  the  purpose  of  sub- 
stantiating or  subverting  the  results  already  at  hand ;  and  although 
many  of  the  experiments  carried  out  under  the  direction  of  the  Ameri- 
can Committee  were  conducted  by  men  of  science,  other  experiments 
under  the  control  customary  in  the  modern  psychological  laboratory  are 
desirable  to  determine  whether  their  negative  results  or  Richet's  slightly 
favorable  results  125  shall  be  expected  at  large.  And  playing  cards  pos- 
sess obvious  advantages:  as  apparatus  they  are  easily  accessible;  they 
are  convenient  to  shuffle,  cut,  and  draw  by  chance;  they  permit  testing 
for  the  relative  preference  128  of  Thought-Transference  for  Color,  Num- 
ber, Form  and  Internal  Speech ;  and  they  offer  convenient  chance  series 
of  1:2,  1:4,  1:10,  and  1:40  (if  the  face-cards,  or  court-cards,  are  dis- 
carded). 

In  order  to  test  the  hypothesis  of  a  common  "Suggestion  Mentale" ; 
to  analyze  out  the  conditions  of  experimentation  responsible  for  success, 
if  found;  to  make  a  psychological  study  of  the  mental  processes  of  the 
reagent  in  the  thought-transference  situation;  to  get  material  with 
which  to  make  a  comparison  between  inductive  and  theoretical  probabil- 
ity; and  to  establish  a  "norm"  for  a  definite  test  for  thought-transfer- 
ence or  clairvoyance :  this  investigation,  continuing  through  four 
years  I27  and  involving  over  no  sets  of  100  experiments  each,  was  made. 

Reagents. 

Our  research  was  conducted  with  the  assistance  of  105  reagents 
(percipients)  and  97  experimenters  (agents),  (the  writer  acting  as  ex- 
perimenter in  18  sets  of  experiments).  All  assisting  experimenters  and 
reagents  were  students  in  the  general  lecture  course  in  psychology  or 
were  doing  laboratory  work  in  the  department,  or  both ;  were  in  their 
first  (29),  second  (72),  third  (50),  fourth  (42),  or  fifth  (7)  year  of 
university  work;   were  pursuing  their  major  subjects  of  study  in  twenty 


125  Preyer  (Die  Erklarung  des  Gedankenlesens,  Leipzig,  1886,  pp.  48  ff)  chal- 
lenges Richet's  results  upon  which  he  announced  "Suggestion  mentale"  as  a  slight 
but  normal  human  phenomenon,  claiming  that  the  slight  excess  over  probability  is 
within  the  limits  of  chance,  and  that  Richet  also  discarded  unfavorable  series. 

126  Cf.,  Reference  to  such  preference  by  the  American  Committee  on  Thought- 
Transference,  Proceedings  Am.S.P.R.,  Series  1,  1:9,  45,  106,  in. 

127  1912-1916. 


GUESSING  OF   PLAYING-CARDS  51 

different  departments  of  the  university;  and  had  registered  from 
twenty-one  different  states  and  from  various  sections  of  California. 
They  were  thus  a  fairly  representative  group  of  normal  people.  Their 
attitude  toward  the  telepathic  hypothesis  determined  their  selection  from 
the  class  for  this  research.  It  was  generally  that  of  positive  belief  in  it. 
Of  the  reagents,  most  of  them  expressed  confidence,  based  upon  their 
own  experience,  either  in  "The  feeling  of  being  stared  at"  (40),  or  in 
the  power  to  "Will  another  to  turn  around"  (1),  or  in  both  (45),  or  in 
thought-transference  (11);  the  few  undecided  or  agnostic  ones  (4) 
were  open-minded  and  were  willing  to  give  the  hypothesis  a  fair  trial. 
Of  the  experimenters,  most  of  them  likewise  expressed  their  faith,  based 
upon  their  own  experience,  in  the  powers  of  "The  feeling  of  being 
stared  at"  (10),  or  of  "Willing"  (7),  or  of  both  (59),  or  in  thought- 
transference  (5) ;  again  the  few  undecided  or  agnostic  ones  (10)  were 
open-minded  and  were  willing  to  do  their  best  to  give  the  hypothesis  a 
fair  trial.  Apart  from  their  own  experience,  almost  all  of  both  groups, 
including  some  of  the  uncertain  and  agnostic  ones,  have  "convincing 
knowledge"  of  thought-transference  experienced  in  their  families  or 
among  their  relatives,  friends,  or  acquaintances.  As  will  be  shown  later, 
the  experience  of  the  four  or  five  days'  work  on  a  set  of  100  experi- 
ments more  often  than  not  left  the  faith  whole  and  the  reagent  expect- 
ant of  statistical  proof.128 

Method. 

In  order  to  determine  whether  transferred  knowledge,  if  any  should 
be  found,  involved  the  use  of  visual  imagery,  as  appeared  to  be  the  case 
in  most  of  the  English  experiments,  or  of  kinaesthetic  imagery  (incip- 
ient pronouncing)  which  Hansen  &  Lehmann  129  found  to  be  effective 
in  the  guessing  of  numbers,  the  card  drawn  by  the  experimenter  was 
held  in  his  mind  in  three  different  forms  of  content,  the  form  being  de- 
termined for  each  experiment  by  the  casting  of  an  odd  number  of  a  die: 
1,  visual  impression;  3,  kinaesthetic  image  (stripped  of  auditory  ac- 
companiment) ;  5,  combined  visual  impression,  kinaesthetic  image,  and 
auditory  image.  In  the  first  form  the  upper  left-hand  corner  of  the  card 
was  critically  inspected,  visually  defining  as  vividly  as  possible  the  small 
Arabic  numeral  in  the  corner  and  the  color  and  form  of  the  pip  which 


128  Vide,  infra,  pp.  109  ff. 

i2» Philosophische  Studien,  1895,  11:471-530. 


52  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

determined  the  suit,  and  since  the  rest  of  the  card  was  not  screened,  the 
general  form,  number,  and  distribution  of  the  pips  on  the  card  were  rep- 
resented in  non-focal  consciousness ;  in  the  second  form,  the  corner  of 
the  card  was  quickly  glanced  at,  then  concealed  and  named  in  inner 
speech  (as  "Five  of  Diamonds")  with  consciousness  vividly  focused 
upon  the  "feel"  of  the  imaged  movement  of  the  vocal  organs,  abstract- 
ing entirely  from  the  image  of  the  sound ;  in  the  third  form,  the  first 
and  second  were  combined  and  an  auditory  image  of  the  experimenter's 
own  voice  in  unison  with  the  voices  of  others  shouting  the  name  of  the 
card;  the  last  form  involved  some  shifting  of  the  attention,  but  it  was 
perhaps  the  most  vivid  of  the  three.  Besides  the  cognitive  mental  con- 
tent, the  experimenter  held  in  consciousness  a  determined  attitude  of 
will  that  the  content  should  reach  the  reagent. 

In  order  to  have  an  experimental  probability  with  which  to  com- 
pare results,  or  to  determine  definitely  that  phenomena  of  thought- 
transference,  if  found,  are  distinct  from  phenomena  of  lucidity,  if  found, 
blank  or  control  experiments  were  provided  for  in  every  series,  and 
were  conditioned  by  an  even  number  of  spots  on  the  die.  This  provision 
enables  us  to  avoid  certain  defects  in  the  entirely  separate  series  of  con- 
trol experiments. 

To  determine,  within  our  limits,  the  influence  of  distance  between 
reagent  and  experimenter,  the  experimenter,  in  the  first  3000  experi- 
ments, moved  his  chair  every  20  experiments,  over  the  following  posi- 
tions:  1,  2,  3,  4.6,  6,  and  10  meters.  And  to  determine  the  influence  of 
the  length  of  the  "interval  of  impression,"  the  time  was  varied,  in  an- 
other 2500  experiments,  over  20,  40,  and  60  seconds,  giving  the  reagent 
the  privilege,  after  the  first  three  or  five  series  of  his  set,  of  choosing 
his  optimal  time 

Guesses  were  recorded  by  the  reagent  upon  the  color,  number,  and 
suit,  of  the  card  separately.  Besides  impelling  him  to  inspect  his  im- 
pressions more  critically,  this  device  permitted  the  calculation  which 
would  determine  whether  color  or  form  is  more  transferable.  The  rec- 
ord was  kept  covered  by  a  sheet  upon  which  introspections  for  each  ex- 
periment were  noted.  The  latter  were  tabulated  according  to  the  fol- 
lowing headings:  (1)  Was  the  mind  in  a  good  receptive  mood?  (2) 
With  respect  to  the  imagery  in  which  your  impression  came,  what  was 
its  (a)  Kind  (visual,  auditory,  kinaesthetic )  ?  (b)  Vividness  (Grade 
A  to  D,  A  for  very  vivid)  ?  (c)  Temporal  course  (did  it  come  at  the 
beginning,  middle,  or  end,  of  the  interval ;    did  it  come  quickly — flash 


GUESSING  OF   PLAYING-CARDS  53 

out — or  did  it  develop  slowly ;  was  it  intermittent,  persistent,  or  fleeting)  ? 
(d)  Spatial  attribute  (where  do  you  image  the  card,  at  your  back,  front, 
right,  left,  and  how  many  meters  away;  or  is  it  in  your  head)  ?  (3) 
What  is  the  certainty  of  your  judgment? 130  (a)  Grade  A  to  D,  A  for  a 
very  good  chance  of  its  being  right ;  D  for  only  a  little  better  chance 
than  a  pure  guess  would  have,  (b)  If  you  graded  your  guess  above  C, 
what  was  there  in  your  experience  upon  which  you  rely  for  your  confi- 
dence ?  The  following  introspections  taken  from  the  record  will  illus- 
trate : 

Reagent  Experiment  12  3 

a       b        c        d        a  b 

4  15  Yes  V      B      bp      fi        B  Came    Immediately 

and   was   very- 
persistent. 
;S  59  Yes  V       B       bq       iyi      B  Saw  it  distinctly. 

For  Reagent  4,  in  his  15th  experiment,  the  mind  was  in  a  good  re- 
ceptive condition  during  the  interval  of  impression ;  the  impression  of 
a  card  came  in  visual  imagery  (V),  vividly  (B),  at  the  beginning  (b) 
of  the  interval,  and  was  persistent  (p)  ;  the  card  was  imaged  in  front 
(f),  about  1  meter  distant;  the  guess  was  made  with  a  high  degree  of 
certainty  (grade  B)  that  it  must  be  right  because  the  impression  "Came 
immediately  and  was  very  persistent."  The  introspections  of  Reagent 
13,  for  his  59th  experiment,  are  similarly  interpreted ;  except  that  his  im- 
pression came  quickly  (q),  and  was  not  noted  as  persistent;  the  card 
was  imaged  in  front  about  ]/2  a  meter  distant ;  and  the  guess  was  given 
a  high  grade  of  certainty  because  the  reagent  "Saw  it  distinctly."  (Fac- 
similes of  the  ruled  forms  for  recording  introspections  and  for  recording 
guesses  may  be  seen  in  Appendix  B.) 

The  experimenter  with  a  watch  before  him,  (1)  shuffles  the  deck  of 
40  playing  cards  (the  face  cards  being  discarded),131  cuts  the  pack, 
and  holds  cards  concealed;  (2)  shakes  the  dice-box,  to  determine  a  con- 
trol or  regular  experiment,  and,  if  the  latter,  the  form  of  content  the 
card  is  to  have  in  his  mind;  (3)  if  a  regular  experiment,  he  turns 
over  the  pack,  exposing  to  his  view  the  under  card,  taps  once  to  sig- 
nal the  reagent  that  the  experimental  period  begins,  holds  mental  con- 


130  For  reference  to  the  desirability  of  noting  the  relation  of  confidence  of 
judgment  to  success,  vide,  Proceedings  Am.  S.  P.  R.,  Series  I,  1 :  109,  262. 

131  Cf.,   Instructions   by   the   American    Committee  on   Thought-Transference, 
Proceedings  Am.S.P.R.,  Series  1,  1:46,  262. 


54  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

tent  of  card  and  wills  the  content  to  be  projected  into  the  mind  of  the 
reagent,  and,  after  15  to  20  or  more  seconds  132  taps  twice  to  signal  the 
close  of  the  interval.  After  he  notes  that  the  reagent  has  recorded  his 
guess,  and  has  turned  to  his  introspections,  he  records  the  color,  num- 
ber, and  suit  of  the  card  and  the  number  of  the  die-spot  which  condi- 
tioned the  form  of  the  experiment  (as,  R5H  1,  for  Red,  Five  of  Hearts, 
Die-spot  1 — i.  e.,  held  in  Visual  Impression).  The  control  experiments 
ran  off  in  precisely  the  same  form  as  the  regular,  except  that  the  card 
remained  unknown  until  the  reagent  had  recorded  his  guess. 

Good  experimental  conditions  133  were  maintained :  quiet,  no  con- 
versation, regularity  of  procedure,  etc.  The  reagent  sat  with  his  back 
toward  the  experimenter,  and  in  the  experimental  interval  he  closed  his 
eyes,  "thought  of  nothing,"  and  assumed  a  calm,  receptive,  quietly  ex- 
pectant state  of  mind;  he  was  cognizant  of  the  method  employed  by  the 
experimenter  and  held  himself  ready  to  receive  impressions  in  any  sense 
mode ;  he  was  given  all  the  time  he  needed  to  note  down  his  introspec- 
tions, which  in  the  early  series  of  the  set  ran  the  experiments  at  the  rate 
of  one  in  5-10  minutes,  but  later  permitted  a  higher  rate,  one  a  minute 
as  a  maximum.  Experiments  were  not  made  after  fatigue  point  had 
been  reached;  a  set  of  10  series  of  10  experiments  each,  100  experi- 
ments, taking  the  reagent  three  to  five  days  (one  week  apart,  and  at  the 
same  hour  of  the  day)  to  complete. 

The  records  were  not  compared  by  the  reagent  or  the  experimenter 
before  the  set  was  complete 134  and  but  seldom  after :  the  procedure 
was  "without  knowledge,"  and  precautions  were  taken  to  avoid  the  rise 
of  any  rumor  (such  as  "Our  results  show  no  telepathy")  which  might 
influence  those  still  engaged  in  the  experiments. 

Results. 

Table  XIII  (on  the  verso  page)  gives  (1)  the  number  of  the  re- 
agent, (2)  the  number  of  correct  guesses  upon  (a)  the  whole  card,  (b) 


132  Vide,  supra,  p.  52. 

183  por  what  are  considered  conditions  essential  to  success,  vide,  Schmoll  and 
Mabire:  Experiments  in  thought-transference  (tr.  from  the  French),  Proceedings 
S.  P.  R.,  1888,  5 :  205  ;  also,  Report  of  the  American  Committee  on  Thought-Trans- 
ference, June  15,  1886,  Proceedings  Am.  S.P.R.,  Series  1,  1:110-111;  idem,  May 
1887,  p.  261. 

134  Cf.,  Gurney,  Myers,  and  Podmore :  Phantasms  of  the  Living,  vol.  I,  p.  33, 
foot-note. 


GUESSING  OF   PLAYING-CARDS  55 

the  color,  (c)  the  number  of  spots,  (d)  the  suit,  (3)  the  number  of 
guesses  wholly  wrong,  and  (4)  the  total  number  of  experiments.  The 
"Card  Not  Imaged"  side  of  the  table  gives  the  data  of  the  control  ex- 
periments, i.  e.,  of  guesses  upon  cards  unknown  to  the  experimenter. 

Table  XIV  (on  the  recto  page)  gives  the  deviations  from  approx- 
imate probability,  and  was  derived  from  the  data  of  Table  XIII  after  the 
latter  was  reduced  to  sets  of  50  experiments.136  In  Table  XIII,  for  ex- 
ample, Reagent  1  made  26  R  guesses  on  color  in  55  control  experiments, 
and  22  in  45  regular  experiments ;  reduction  of  the  control  and  regular 
experiments  to  50  each  makes  the  value  of  the  R  guesses  24  in  each 
case  (disregarding  decimals),  which  is  a  deviation  of  -1  from  the  "prob- 
able number"  25.  The  deviations  of  guesses  on  Card,  and  Suit,  and  of 
guesses  Wholly  Wrong,  are  made  from  the  integral  number  nearest  the 
value  of  the  "probable  number,"  which  in  these  cases  is  fractional;  i.  e., 
on  the  Card  it  is  made  from  1  instead  of  from  1.25;  on  the  Suit  from 
12  if  minus,  or  13  if  plus,  instead  of  from  12.5 ;  etc.136  This  is  the  only 
table  in  which  the  results  of  the  different  reagents  may  be  compared 
directly. 

Table  XV  gives  the  totals  per  1000;  Table  XVI  gives  (1)  the  per 
cent  of  R  cases  (a)  per  1000  experiments,  and  (b)  the  per  cent  for  the 
total,  as  well  as  (2)  the  per  cent  expected  from  theoretical  probability; 
and  Table  XVII  gives  the  deviations  from  the  probable  per  cent. 

135  This  reduced  table  (Table  XIIIo)  may  be  seen  in  Appendix  A. 

136  The  reader  w;n  readily  recognize  the  fact  that  these  deviations  are  only 
approximate  and,  consequently,  cannot  be  compared  for  slight  differences.  In  the 
reduction  to  sets  of  so,  the  value  found  is  an  integer  which  may  vary  in  value  from 
-0.5  to  +0.4.  Deviation  is  calculated  from  the  integer.  In  no  case,  however,  can 
the  neglected  values  exceed  a  deviation  of  ±0.5  in  the  cases  of  Colors  or  Numbers, 
or  ±1.  in  the  cases  of  Suits  or  Wrong  guesses,  or  ±0.75  in  the  case  of  Cards. 
The  justification  for  neglecting  these  fractional  deviations  lies  in  their  small  value 
as  compared  with  the  deviations  themselves,  and  in  the  increased  clearness  of  the 
table  consequent  upon  the  dispensing  with  decimals.  The  smaller  differences,  more- 
over, are  not  significant  in  sets  of  50  experiments;  they  reach  significance  only  in 
the  averages,  or  in  per  cents  calculated  from  the  averages,  of  a  number  of  sets,  in 
which  statistical  consideration  we  turn  to  the  original  unreduced  data. 


56 


THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 


TABLE  XIII.    NUMBER  OF  RIGHT  CASES  IN  THE  GUESSING  OF  PLAY- 
ING-CARDS. 

(Sets  of  ioo  Experiments.) 


A.   Normal 

Persons  (Students). 

Card  Not 

Imag 

ed 

Card  I 

maged 

Reagent 

Card 

Color 

No. 

Suit 

W 

Total 

Card 

Color 

No. 

Suit 

W  Total 

/. 

4 

26 

6 

16 

28 

55 

3 

22 

7 

11 

21 

45 

2. 

3 

26 

S 

14 

19 

46 

0 

20 

6 

7 

30 

54 

3- 

2 

36 

5 

19 

10 

47 

2 

28 

5 

12 

24 

53 

4- 

2 

21 

S 

13 

22 

46 

2 

28 

8 

13 

21 

54 

5- 

2 

25 

6 

10 

25 

54 

1 

17 

3 

10 

27 

46 

6. 

2 

31 

6 

13 

17 

52 

0 

26 

4 

10 

20 

48 

7- 

I 

18 

3 

12 

29 

48 

2 

29 

3 

13 

23 

52 

8. 

0 

28 

S 

14 

24 

55 

0 

18 

2 

12 

25 

45 

p. 

0 

23 

3 

10 

18 

44 

1 

24 

4 

14 

29 

56 

10. 

2 

3i 

4 

16 

23 

56 

1 

23 

4 

14 

18 

44 

Totals 

18 

265 

48 

137 

215 

503 

12 

235 

46 

116 

238 

497 

ISt  IOO0 

ii. 

i 

25 

8 

14 

20 

51 

2 

25 

8 

12 

18 

49 

12. 

i 

24 

7 

12 

17 

47 

1 

3i 

8 

16 

20 

53 

!3- 

2 

21 

7 

8 

29 

53 

1 

17 

4 

7 

28 

47 

14- 

0 

29 

3 

12 

24 

55 

1 

19 

5 

8 

22 

45 

15- 

I 

24 

4 

10 

17 

43 

0 

29 

5 

16 

26 

57 

16. 

I 

23 

4 

14 

25 

50 

1 

29 

6 

15 

19 

50 

'7- 

3 

26 

6 

11 

24 

52 

1 

24 

4 

18 

21 

48 

18. 

i 

20 

6 

8 

20 

43 

1 

22 

2 

12 

34 

57 

19- 

2 

21 

8 

14 

16 

42 

2 

28 

7 

13 

26 

58 

20. 

0 

27 

7 

12 

24 

56 

1 

25 

4 

13 

18 

44 

Totals 

12 

240 

60 

«5 

216 

492 

11 

249 

53 

130 

232 

508 

2d  1000 

21. 

I 

18 

2 

6 

28 

46 

2 

22 

6 

13 

28 

54 

22. 

0 

26 

1 

11 

15 

41 

1 

23 

4 

8 

33 

59 

23- 

0 

23 

1 

15 

20 

44 

2 

24 

6 

12 

28 

56 

24- 

0 

27 

7 

12 

18 

47 

1 

28 

6 

16 

22 

53 

25- 

4 

31 

9 

20 

18 

52 

4 

28 

11 

15 

17 

48 

26. 

0 

28 

1 

19 

22 

51 

4 

25 

9 

13 

21 

49 

27- 

0 

15 

1 

9 

27 

42 

2 

3i 

8 

18 

21 

58 

28. 

2 

22 

3 

14 

25 

48 

1 

26 

5 

15 

23 

52 

29- 

0 

21 

2 

13 

22 

44 

0 

31 

5 

8 

22 

56 

30- 

0 

18 

1 

9 

25 

44 

3 

28 

11 

17 

23 

56 

Totals 

7 

229 

28 

128 

220 

459 

20 

266 

7i 

135 

238 

541 

3d  iooo 

GUESSING  OF   PLAYING-CARDS 


57 


TABLE  XIV.     RIGHT  CASES  IN  THE  GUESSING  OF  PLAYING-CARDS. 
DEVIATIONS  FROM   APPROXIMATE  PROBABILITY. 

A.  Normal   Persons    (Students). 


Card  Not  Imaged 

Card  Imaged 

Card 

Color 

No. 

Suit 

W 

Card 

Color 

No. 

Suit 

W 

Probable  No. 

1.25 

25 

5 

12-5 

22.5 

1-25 

25 

5 

12.5 

22.J 

Reagent 

ISt   IOOO      J. 

+3 

-I 

0 

+2 

+2 

+2 

-i 

+3 

0 

0 

2. 

+2 

+3 

0 

+2 

-I 

-I 

-6 

+i 

-6 

+5 

3- 

+1 

+13 

0 

+7 

-II 

+  1 

+i 

0 

-i 

0 

4- 

+1 

-2 

0 

+1 

+  1 

+  1 

+i 

+2 

0 

-3 

5- 

+  1 

-2 

+1 

-3 

0 

0 

-7 

-2 

-I 

+6 

6. 

+1 

+5 

+1 

0 

-6 

-I 

+2 

-I 

-2 

-I 

7- 

0 

-6 

-2 

0 

+7 

+  1 

+3 

-2 

0 

0 

8. 

-I 

0 

0 

0 

0 

-I 

-5 

-3 

0 

+5 

P- 

-I 

+i 

-2 

-I 

-2 

0 

-4 

-I 

0 

+3 

w. 

+  1 

+3 

-I 

+1 

-I 

0 

+i 

0 

+3 

-2 

2d   IOOO 

II. 

0 

0 

+3 

+1 

-2 

12. 

0 

+1 

+2 

0 

-4 

13- 

+  1 

-5 

+2 

-4 

+4 

14- 

-I 

+  i 

-2 

-i 

0 

15- 

0 

+3 

0 

0 

-2 

16. 

0 

-2 

-I 

+1 

+2 

17- 

+2 

0 

+  1 

-I 

0 

18. 

0 

-2 

+2 

-3 

0 

19- 

+1 

0 

+5 

+4 

-3 

20. 

-I 

-I 

+1 

-I 

-i 

+i 

+1 

+3 

0 

-4 

0 

+4 

+3 

+2 

-3 

0 

-7 

-I 

-5 

+7 

0 

-4 

+i 

-3 

+i 

-1 

0 

-I 

+i 

0 

0 

+4 

+1 

+2 

-3 

0 

0 

-I 

+6 

0 

0 

-6 

-3 

-i 

+7 

+1 

-i 

+i 

-i 

0 

0 

+3 

0 

+2 

-2 

3d     iooo 


21. 

0 

-5 

-3 

-5 

+7 

+i 

-5 

+i 

0 

+3 

22. 

-I 

+7 

-4 

0 

-4 

0 

-6 

-2 

-5 

+5 

S3- 

-I 

+i 

-4 

+4 

0 

+1 

-4 

0 

-i 

+2 

24- 

-I 

+4 

+2 

0 

-3 

0 

+i 

+1 

+2 

-I 

25- 

+3 

+5 

+4 

+6 

-5 

+3 

+4 

+6 

+3 

~4 

26. 

-i 

+2 

-4 

+6 

0 

+3 

+1 

+4 

0 

-I 

27- 

-i 

-7 

-4 

-i 

+9 

+i 

+2 

+2 

+2 

-4 

28. 

+i 

-2 

-2 

+2 

+3 

0 

0 

0 

+1 

0 

29- 

-i 

-1 

-3 

+2 

+2 

-i 

+3 

-I 

-5 

-2 

30. 

-i 

-5 

-4 

-2 

+5 

+2 

0 

+5 

+2 

-I 

58 


THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 


TABLE  XIII— Continued. 


Ca 

rd  Not  Imaged 

Card  Imaged 

Reagent 

Card  Color 

No. 

Suit 

W 

Total 

Card 

Color 

No. 

Suit 

W 

rotal 

31- 

0 

14 

3 

7 

22 

38 

2 

36 

7 

20 

23 

62 

3?- 

S 

25 

8 

17 

25 

5i 

6 

26 

10 

20 

20 

49 

33- 

2 

3i 

5 

18 

18 

52 

2 

31 

5 

19 

17 

48 

34- 

2 

24 

4 

15 

20 

46 

1 

34 

7 

15 

16 

54 

35- 

I 

24 

3 

15 

23 

48 

0 

28 

3 

12 

23 

52 

36. 

I 

28 

7 

14 

15 

46 

2 

31 

5 

18 

23 

54 

37- 

2 

39 

6 

23 

15 

56 

0 

18 

5 

10 

22 

44 

38. 

0 

21 

4 

10 

29 

53 

2 

24 

4 

9 

22 

47 

39- 

0 

19 

2 

10 

27 

48 

1 

26 

3 

15 

25 

52 

40. 

0 

21 

1 

10 

23 

44 

4 

30 

7 

18 

25 

56 

Totals 

13 

246 

43 

139 

217 

482 

20 

284 

56 

156 

216 

5i8 

4th  iooo 

4'- 

i 

31 

4 

11 

18 

52 

3 

24 

9 

10 

20 

48 

42- 

i 

24 

2 

13 

24 

49 

3 

26 

10 

12 

19 

5i 

43- 

2 

31 

4 

12 

17 

48 

0 

25 

4 

13 

24 

52 

44- 

0 

26 

4 

13 

18 

48 

1 

25 

7 

13 

22 

52 

45- 

1 

23 

6 

10 

22 

48 

0 

30 

3 

16 

20 

52 

46. 

2 

31 

8 

12 

17 

53 

2 

20 

4 

12 

26 

47 

47- 

0 

28 

1 

14 

22 

50 

2 

28 

8 

15 

17 

50 

48. 

1 

31 

6 

13 

23 

57 

0 

23 

4 

13 

19 

43 

49- 

I 

23 

7 

10 

16 

43 

5 

29 

12 

19 

25 

57 

50- 

I 

24 

3 

9 

23 

48 

1 

28 

5 

13 

21 

52 

Totals 

10 

272 

45 

117 

200 

496 

17 

258 

66 

136 

213 

504 

5th  iooo 

5i- 

3 

15 

5 

10 

21 

37 

2 

28 

8 

16 

31 

63 

52- 

3 

28 

4 

11 

15 

43 

2 

30 

8 

20 

24 

57 

53- 

i 

26 

6 

12 

23 

S3 

1 

24 

5 

11 

19 

47 

54- 

2 

23 

7 

15 

23 

50 

1 

23 

4 

13 

24 

50 

55- 

2 

26 

5 

11 

27 

56 

1 

17 

2 

9 

26 

44 

56. 

0 

29 

8 

10 

23 

56 

2 

28 

4 

16 

M 

44 

57- 

2 

18 

5 

6 

25 

46 

3 

23 

7 

15 

27 

54 

58. 

I 

26 

9 

11 

17 

48 

1 

22 

5 

12 

27 

52 

59- 

I 

31 

4 

18 

11 

43 

4 

30 

9 

13 

23 

57 

6o. 

I 

30 

5 

14 

22 

56 

2 

23 

6 

13 

19 

44 

Totals 

16 

252 

58 

118 

207 

488 

19 

248 

58 

138 

234 

512 

6th  iooo 

GUESSING  OF   PLAYING-CARDS 


59 


TABLE  XIV— Continued. 


Card  Not  Imaged 

Card  Imaged 

Card 

Color 

No. 

Suit 

W 

Card 

Color 

No. 

Suit 

W 

Probable 

No. 
Reagent 

1.25 

35 

5 

13-5 

22.5 

1-25 

35 

5 

13.5 

23.5 

4th  iooo 

Si- 

-i 

-7 

-i 

-3 

+6 

+1 

+4 

+1 

+3 

-3 

3* 

+4 

0 

+3 

+4 

+2 

+5 

+2 

+5 

+7 

-2 

33- 

+i 

+5 

0 

+4 

-5 

+1 

+7 

0 

+7 

-4 

34- 

+i 

+i 

-i 

+3 

0 

0 

+6 

+1 

+1 

-7 

35- 

0 

0 

-2 

+3 

+1 

-1 

+2 

-2 

0 

0 

36. 

0 

+5 

+3 

+2 

-6 

+1 

+4 

0 

+4 

-1 

37- 

+1 

+10 

0 

+8 

-9 

-1 

-5 

+1 

-1 

+2 

38. 

-I 

-5 

-I 

-3 

+4 

+1 

+1 

-1 

-2 

0 

39- 

-I 

-5 

-3 

-2 

+5 

0 

0 

-2 

+1 

+1 

40. 

-I 

-i 

-4 

-1 

+3 

+3 

+2 

+1 

+3 

0 

5th  iooo 

41- 

0 

+5 

-i 

_j 

-5 

+2 

0 

+4 

-2 

-1 

42- 

0 

-i 

-3 

0 

+1 

+2 

0 

+5 

0 

-3 

43- 

+1 

+7 

-i 

0 

-4 

-1 

-1 

-1 

0 

0 

44- 

-I 

+2 

-i 

+1 

-3 

0 

-1 

+2 

0 

-1 

45- 

0 

-1 

+i 

-2 

0 

-1 

+4 

-2 

+2 

-3 

46. 

+1 

+4 

+3 

-I 

-6 

+1 

-4 

-1 

0 

+S 

47- 

-I 

+3 

-4 

+  1 

0 

+1 

+3 

+3 

+2 

-5 

48. 

0 

+2 

0 

-I 

-2 

-1 

+2 

0 

+2 

0 

49- 

0 

+2 

+3 

0 

-3 

+3 

0 

+6 

+4 

0 

50. 

0 

0 

-2 

-3 

+1 

0 

+2 

0 

0 

-2 

6th  iooo  51. 

+3 

-5 

+2 

+1 

+5 

52- 

+2 

+8 

0 

0 

-s 

53- 

0 

0 

+1 

-1 

0 

54- 

+1 

-2 

+2 

+2 

0 

55- 

+1 

-2 

-1 

-2 

+1 

56. 

-1 

+1 

+2 

-3 

-1 

57- 

+1 

-5 

0 

-5 

+4 

58. 

0 

+2 

+4 

-1 

-4 

59- 

0 

+11 

0 

+8 

-9 

60. 

0 

+2 

-1 

0 

-2 

+1 

-3 

+1 

0 

+2 

+1 

+1 

+2 

+5 

-1 

0 

+1 

0 

0 

-2 

0 

-2 

-1 

0 

+1 

0 

-6 

-3 

-2 

+7 

+1 

+7 

0 

+5 

-6 

+2 

-4 

+1 

+1 

+2 

0 

-4 

0 

0 

+3 

+3 

+1 

+3 

-1 

-2 

+1 

+1 

+2 

+2 

0 

60 


THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 


TABLE  XIII— Continued. 


Ca 

rd  Not  Imaged 

Card  Imaged 

Reagent 

Card  Color 

No. 

Suit 

W 

Total 

Card 

Color 

No. 

Suit 

W  ' 

Total 

61. 

i 

23 

5 

13 

18 

45 

0 

24 

0 

13 

3i 

55 

62. 

i 

26 

2 

11 

17 

43 

0 

33 

5 

10 

22 

57 

63- 

2 

24 

6 

15 

20 

46 

4 

27 

6 

20 

25 

54 

64- 

6 

30 

9 

17 

18 

49 

3 

27 

7 

14 

24 

5i 

65- 

2 

26 

7 

13 

26 

55 

1 

22 

3 

10 

21 

45 

66. 

3 

27 

9 

11 

26 

53 

3 

23 

10 

14 

19 

47 

67- 

2 

28 

6 

16 

18 

48 

0 

19 

4 

13 

29 

52 

68. 

2 

23 

7 

9 

19 

46 

2 

29 

5 

16 

24 

54 

69. 

2 

24 

3 

15 

23 

48 

2 

27 

5 

13 

23 

52 

70. 

2 

27 

8 

13 

23 

53 

2 

17 

5 

10 

27 

47 

Totals 

23 

258 

62 

133 

208 

486 

17 

248 

50 

133 

245 

514 

7th  iooo 

71- 

3 

30 

3 

16 

30 

60 

1 

17 

4 

11 

22 

40 

72- 

2 

20 

S 

12 

23 

45 

0 

27 

3 

9 

27 

55 

73- 

I 

24 

4 

16 

16 

42 

1 

23 

7 

10 

30 

58 

74- 

2 

21 

4 

11 

13 

36 

0 

37 

3 

19 

25 

64 

75- 

0 

31 

9 

14 

18 

55 

2 

21 

5 

13 

22 

45 

76. 

3 

28 

10 

13 

19 

50 

1 

25 

4 

12 

23 

50 

77- 

I 

33 

6 

15 

21 

57 

2 

15 

6 

8 

24 

43 

78. 

2 

32 

4 

20 

25 

59 

4 

19 

6 

12 

21 

41 

79- 

0 

16 

S 

9 

31 

50 

2 

26 

3 

13 

23 

50 

8o. 

0 

27 

3 

11 

21 

50 

0 

26 

3 

14 

21 

50 

Totals 

M 

262 

53 

137 

217 

504 

13 

236 

44 

121 

238 

496 

8th  iooo 

8i. 

i 

21 

3 

9 

30 

52 

I 

25 

4 

12 

20 

48 

82. 

0 

23 

3 

15 

17 

43 

I 

30 

4 

15 

26 

57 

83- 

2 

25 

5 

13 

22 

48 

I 

24 

6 

12 

24 

52 

84- 

2 

28 

8 

12 

17 

50 

I 

29 

6 

14 

19 

5° 

85- 

I 

18 

4 

9 

30 

50 

I 

26 

5 

11 

20 

50 

86. 

I 

33 

4 

14 

18 

53 

3 

28 

6 

16 

16 

47 

87. 

0 

18 

3 

6 

17 

38 

1 

28 

7 

13 

30 

62- 

88. 

2 

36 

4 

15 

19 

56 

0 

20 

2 

11 

24 

44 

89- 

0 

29 

4 

14 

16 

47 

2 

24 

3 

11 

28 

53 

90. 

I 

24 

6 

13 

30 

57 

1 

21 

6 

9 

17 

43 

Totals 

10 

255 

44 

120 

216 

494 

12 

255 

49 

124 

224 

506 

9th  iooo 

GUESSING  OF    PLAYING-CARDS 


61 


TABLE  XIV— Continued. 


Card  Not  Imaged 

Card  Imaged 

Card 

Color 

No. 

Suit 

W 

Card 

Color 

No. 

Suit 

W 

Probable  No. 

1.25 

25 

5 

12.5 

22.5 

1.25 

25 

5 

12.5 

22.5 

Reagent 

7th  iooo   6i. 

0 

+1 

+1 

+  1 

-2 

-1 

-3 

-5 

0 

+5 

62. 

0 

+5 

-3 

0 

-2 

-1 

+4 

-1 

-3 

-3 

63- 

+1 

+1 

+2 

+3 

0 

+3 

+0 

+1 

+6 

0 

64. 

+5 

■f6 

+4 

+4 

-4 

+2 

+1 

+2 

+1 

+1 

65- 

+1 

-1 

+1 

0 

+1 

0 

-1 

-2 

-1 

0 

66. 

+2 

0 

-13 

-2 

+2 

+2 

-1 

+6 

+2 

—2 

67. 

+1 

+4 

+1 

+4 

-3 

-1 

-7 

-1 

0 

+5 

68. 

+1 

0 

+3 

_2 

-1 

+1 

+2 

0 

+2 

0 

69. 

+1 

0 

-2 

+3 

+1 

+1 

+1 

0 

0 

0 

70. 

+1 

0 

+3 

0 

0 

+1 

-7 

0 

-1 

+6 

8th  1000   71. 

+1 

0 

-3 

0 

+2 

0 

-4 

0 

+  1 

+5 

72- 

+1 

-3 

+1 

0 

+3 

-1 

0 

-2 

-4 

+2 

73- 

0 

+4 

0 

46 

-3 

0 

-5 

+1 

-3 

+3 

74- 

+2 

+4 

+1 

+2 

-4 

-1 

+4 

-3 

+2 

-2 

75- 

-1 

+3 

+3 

O 

-6 

+1 

-2 

+1 

+  1 

+1 

76. 

+2 

+3 

+5 

0 

-3 

0 

0 

-1 

0 

0 

77- 

0 

+4 

0 

0 

-4 

+1 

-8 

+2 

-3 

+5 

78. 

+  1 

+2 

-2 

+4 

-1 

+4 

-2 

+2 

+2 

+3 

79- 

-1 

-9 

0 

-3 

+8 

+1 

+1 

-2 

0 

0 

So. 

-1 

+2 

-2 

-1 

-1 

-1 

+1 

-2 

+1 

-1 

9th    IOOO 


81. 


+6 


fe. 

-1 

+2 

—2 

+4 

-2 

ft. 

+1 

+1 

0 

+1 

0 

s* 

+1 

+3 

+3 

0 

-s 

85- 

0 

-7 

-1 

-3 

+7 

86. 

0 

+6 

-1 

0 

-5 

87. 

-1 

-1 

-1 

-4 

0 

88. 

+1 

+7 

-1 

0 

-s 

89- 

-1 

+6 

-1 

+2 

-5 

90- 

0 

-4 

0 

-1 

+3 

0 

+1 

-1 

0 

-1 

0 

+  1 

-1 

0 

0 

0 

-2 

+1 

0 

0 

0 

+4 

+1 

+1 

-3 

0 

+1 

0 

-1 

-2 

+2 

+5 

+1 

+4 

-5 

0 

-2 

+1 

-2 

+1 

-1 

-2 

-3 

0 

+4 

+1 

-2 

-2 

-2 

+3 

0 

-1 

+2 

-2 

-2 

62 


THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 


Reagent 


TABLE  XIII— Continued. 

Card  Not  Imaged  Card  Imaged 

Card  Color  No.    Suit      W    Total    Card  Color  No.     Suit     W   Total 


91- 

2 

22 

4 

12 

18 

42 

1 

35 

3 

20 

21 

58 

9?- 

I 

21 

5 

11 

26 

48 

1 

21 

8 

12 

25 

52 

93- 

3 

21 

5 

8 

18 

41 

1 

29 

5 

15 

28 

59 

94- 

i 

24 

4 

13 

19 

44 

0 

33 

1 

15 

23 

56 

95- 

i 

15 

5 

9 

22 

40 

1 

25 

7 

19 

30 

60 

96. 

i 

24 

5 

7 

31 

55 

0 

26 

2 

14 

18 

45 

97- 

2 

24 

3 

11 

26 

50 

4 

24 

4 

13 

26 

50 

9#. 

I 

16 

4 

11 

22 

40 

2 

27 

6 

11 

31 

60 

99- 

3 

21 

6 

16 

23 

46 

2 

28 

5 

17 

24 

54 

100. 

3 

24 

6 

10 

28 

55 

0 

29 

4 

19 

14 

45 

Totals 

18 

212 

47 

108 

233 

461 

12 

277 

45 

155 

240 

539 

ioth  looo 

B.   "Psychics 

."* 

i. 

0 

23 

8 

8 

23 

5i 

2 

26 

5 

13 

20 

49 

2. 

0 

24 

2 

12 

28 

54 

2 

22 

7 

10 

20 

46 

3- 

3 

29 

6 

15 

18 

49 

4 

27 

6 

14 

24 

51 

4- 

i 

21 

3 

11 

20 

43 

2 

30 

8 

13 

22 

57 

5- 

0 

24 

2 

16 

20 

46 

2 

31 

4 

19 

22 

54 

Totals 

4 

121 

21 

62 

109 

243 

12 

136 

30 

69 

108 

257 

6. 

I 

20 

2 

13 

17 

37 

2 

25 

6 

9 

35 

63 

7- 

3 

29 

8 

18 

22 

55 

0 

28 

4 

14 

15 

45 

8. 

2 

22 

6 

17 

22 

47 

3 

31 

6 

15 

20 

53 

9- 

0 

17 

2 

6 

19 

38 

0 

28 

6 

16 

28 

62 

10. 

I 

23 

4 

14 

25 

50 

I 

29 

5 

15 

18 

50 

Totals 

7 

III 

22 

68 

105 

227 

6 

141 

27 

69 

116 

273 

Grand 

Totals 

ii 

232 

43 

130 

214 

470 

18 

277 

57 

138 

224 

530 

C.   Corneal  Reflection.! 

/. 

2 

22 

6 

12 

24 

49 

22 

39 

33 

24 

12 

51 

//. 

I 

20 

9 

11 

19 

45 

33 

46 

37 

38 

9 

55 

///. 

0 

29 

3 

16 

30 

61 

20 

29 

27 

22 

8 

39 

IV. 

3 

17 

8 

11 

21 

41 

28 

55 

36 

39 

4 

59 

V. 

i 

30 

6 

14 

15 

49 

9 

33 

19 

16 

15 

51 

Totals 

7 
P-  125 

Il8 

32 

64 

109 

245 

112 

202 

152 

139 

48 

255 

*  Vide, 

t  Vide, 

p.  121 

GUESSING  OF   PLAYING-CARDS  63 


TABLE  XIV— Continued. 


Card    Not   Imaged 

Card   Imaged 

Card 

Color 

No. 

Suit 

W 

Card 

Color 

No. 

Suit 

W 

Probable   No. 

1.25 

25 

5 

13.5 

22.5 

1. 25 

35 

5 

12-5 

22.5 

Reagent 

ioth  iooo        91. 

+1 

+1 

0 

+1 

-1 

0 

+5 

-2 

+4 

-4 

92- 

0 

-3 

0 

-1 

+4 

0 

-s 

+3 

0 

+1 

93- 

+3 

+1 

+  1 

-2 

0 

0 

0 

-1 

0 

+1 

94- 

0 

+2 

0 

+2 

0 

-1 

+4 

-4 

0 

-1 

95- 

0 

-6 

+1 

-1 

+5 

0 

-4 

+1 

+3 

+2 

96. 

0 

-3 

0 

-6 

+5 

-1 

+4 

-3 

+3 

-2 

97- 

+1 

-1 

-2 

-1 

+3 

+3 

-1 

-1 

0 

+3 

98. 

0 

-5 

0 

+1 

+5 

+1 

-2 

0 

-3 

+3 

90.  +2-2+2+4  +2  +1  +1  O  +3 

roo.        +2-3  0-3        +2  -i        +7        -1        +8 


B. 

"Psychics." 

1. 

-1 

-2 

+3 

-4 

0 

3. 

-1 

-3 

-3 

-1 

+3 

3- 

+2 

+5 

+1 

+2 

-4 

4- 

0 

-1 

-2 

0 

0 

5- 

-1 

+1 

-3 

+4 

0 

+1 

+2 

0 

0 

-2 

+1 

-1 

+3 

-1 

0 

+3 

+1 

+1 

+1 

+1 

+1 

+1 

+2 

-1 

-3 

+1 

+4 

-1 

+5 

-2 

6. 

0 

+2 

-2 

+5 

0 

7- 

+2 

+1 

+2 

+3 

-2 

*. 

+1 

-2 

+1 

+5 

0 

9- 

-1 

-3 

-2 

-4 

+2 

'O. 

0 

-2 

-1 

+1 

+2 

+1 

-5 

0 

-s 

+5 

-1 

+6 

-1 

+3 

-5 

+2 

+4 

+1 

+1 

-3 

-1 

-2 

0 

0 

0 

0 

+4 

0 

+2 

-4 

C.  Corneal  Reflect 

ion. 

/. 

0 

-3 

+5 

0 

-1 

+29 

+i7 

+29 

+22 

-14 

11. 

+1 

-3 

+1 

0 

+1 

+21 

+13 

+27 

+11 

-10 

III. 

-1 

-1 

-3 

0 

+2 

+25 

+12 

+30 

+15 

-12 

IV. 

+3 

-4 

+5 

0 

+3 

+23 

+22 

+26 

+20 

-19 

+6       +1       +1       -7  +8       +7     +14       +3       -7 


64 


THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 


TABLE  XV. 


Totals  ( 

per  1000). 

Card 

Not  Imaged 

Card  Imaged 

Students 

Card 

Color 

No. 

Suit 

w 

Total 

Card 

Color 

No. 

Suit 

W  Total 

ISt  IOOO 

18 

265 

48 

137 

215 

503 

12 

235 

46 

116 

238 

497 

2d  IOOO 

12 

240 

60 

US 

216 

492 

11 

249 

53 

130 

232 

508 

3d  IOOO 

7 

229 

28 

128 

220 

459 

20 

266 

71 

135 

238 

54i 

4th  1000 

13 

246 

43 

139 

217 

482 

20 

284 

56 

156 

216 

5i8 

5th  IOOO 

10 

272 

45 

"7 

200 

496 

17 

258 

66 

136 

213 

S04 

6th  1000 

16 

252 

58 

118 

207 

488 

19 

248 

58 

138 

234 

512 

7th  IOOO 

23 

258 

62 

133 

208 

486 

17 

248 

So 

133 

245 

514 

8th  1000 

14 

262 

S3 

137 

217 

504 

13 

236 

44 

121 

238 

496 

gth  1000 

10 

255 

44 

120 

2l6 

494 

12 

255 

49 

124 

224 

506 

10th  1000 

18 

212 

47 

108 

233 

461 

12 

277 

45 

155 

240 

539 

Totals 

141 

2491 

488 

1252 

2149 

4865 

153 

2SS6 

538 

1344 

2318 

5135 

Psychics 

11 

232 

43 

130 

214 

470 

18 

277 

57 

138 

224 

530 

Totals 

Prob. 

Psychics 


TABLE  XVI. 
Per  Cent  (per  1000). 


Card 

Not  Imaged 

Card  Imaged 

Students 

Card 

Color 

No. 

Suit 

W 

Card 

Color 

No. 

Suit 

W 

ISt  IOOO 

3.58 

52-7 

95 

27.2 

42.7 

2.41 

47-3 

9-2 

23-3 

47-9 

2d  IOOO 

2-44 

48.8 

12.2 

23-4 

43-9 

2.16 

49.0 

10.4 

25.6 

45-6 

3d  IOOO 

1-52 

49-8 

6.1 

27.9 

47-9 

3-70 

49.2 

131 

25.0 

44.0 

4th  IOOO 

2.70 

51.0 

8.9 

28.8 

45-0 

3-86 

54-8 

10.8 

30.1 

417 

5th  IOOO 

2.02 

54.8 

9-1 

23.6 

40.3 

3-37 

51-2 

131 

27.0 

42.2 

6th  1000 

3.28 

51.6 

11.9 

24.2 

42.4 

3-71 

48.4 

H-3 

27.0 

457 

7th  1000 

4-73 

53-i 

12.7 

273 

42.8 

3-30 

48.2 

97 

25.8 

47-3 

8th  1000 

2.78 

51.9 

10.5 

27.1 

43-1 

2.62 

47-5 

8.9 

24-3 

48.0 

9th  IOOO 

2.03 

516 

8.9 

24-3 

43-7 

2.37 

50.4 

97 

24-5 

44-3 

10th  1000 

3-90 

46.0 

10.2 

23-4 

50.6 

2.23 

51-4 

8.9 

28.8 

44-5 

2.90      51.2 


25.8     44.1 


2.98     49.7     10.5     26.. 


451 


2.50      50.0      10.0      25.0      450  2.50      50.0      10.0      25.0      45.0 

2.34      49-3        9-1      27.6      45.5  340      523      10.8      26.0      42.3 


GUESSING  OF   PLAYING-CARDS  65 

TABLE  XVII. 
Deviations  of  per  cents    (per   iooo)    from  the   Probable  per  cent. 


Card 

Not 

Imaged 

Card   Imaged 

Card 

Color 

No. 

Suit 

W 

Card 

Color 

No. 

Suit 

W 

Probable 

%  2.50 

50 

10 

25 

45 

2.50 

5° 

10 

25 

45 

Students 

ISt  1000 

+  1.08 

+2.7 

-o.S 

+2.2 

-2.3 

-0.09 

-2.7 

-0.8 

-1-7 

+2.9 

2d    IOOO 

-0.06 

-1.2 

+2.2 

-1.6 

-1.1 

-0.34 

-1.0 

+0.4 

+0.6 

+0.6 

3d  1000 

-0.98 

-0.2 

-3-9 

+2.9 

+2.9 

+1.20 

-0.8 

+3-i 

0.0 

-1.0 

4th  1000 

+0.20 

+  1.0 

-1.1 

+3-8 

0.0 

+  1.36 

+4.8 

+0.8 

+5-1 

-3-3 

5th  1000 

-0.48 

+4.8 

-0.9 

-1.4 

-47 

+0.87 

+1.2 

+3-1 

+2.0 

-2.8 

6th  1000 

+0.78 

+1.6 

+1.9 

-0.8 

-2.6 

+1.21 

-1.6 

+i-3 

+2.0 

+0.7 

7th  1000 

+2.23 

+3-1 

+2.7 

+2.3 

-2.2 

+0.80 

-1.8 

-0.3 

+0.8 

+2.3 

8th  1000 

+0.28 

+  1.9 

+0.5 

+2.1 

-1.9 

+0.12 

-2.5 

-1.1 

-07 

+3-0 

9th  1000 

-0.47 

+1.6 

-1.1 

-0.7 

-1-3 

-0.13 

+0.4 

-0.3 

-0.5 

-0.7 

10th  1000 

+1.40 

-4-0 

+0.2 

-1.6 

+4.6 

-0.27 

+1.4 

-1.1 

+3-8 

-0.5 

Totals 

+0.40 

+1.2 

0.0 

+0.8 

-0.9 

+0.48 

-0.3 

+0.5 

+1.2 

+0.1 

Psychics 

-0.16 

-0.7 

-0.9 

+2.6 

+o.S 

+0.90 

+2.3 

+0.8 

+1.0 

-27 

Inspection  of  the  data  in  Table  XIII  reveals  great  variation  among 
the  corresponding  entries,  which,  of  course,  except  in  sets  in  which  the 
die  cast  odd  and  even  equally  often,  cannot  be  directly  compared ;  and 
although  this  variation  is  slightly  decreased  by  the  reduction  of  each  of 
the  two  parts  of  a  set  to  a  set  of  even  50  experiments,  as  is  done  in  Ta- 
ble XIIIo  (in  Appendix  A),  from  which  the  deviations  in  Table 
XIV  are  calculated,  the  amount  of  variation  in  the  "Total"  column, 
which  results  from  pure  chance,  warns  us  that  we  shall  have  to  exercise 
great  care  in  identifying  "significant"  deviations.  Were  we  to  disre- 
gard for  a  moment  the  possibility  of  a  faculty  of  "lucidity"  or  clairvoy- 
ance, which  might  disturb  apparently  ostensibly  chance  results,  and, 
with  Richet,137  consider  guessing  upon  unknown  cards  a  true  "control" 
experiment  yielding  purely  chance  results,  the  deviations  in  Table  XIV 
under  "Card  Not  Imaged"  stand  before  us  as  cases  of  chance  deviation, 
beyond  which  "significant"  values  must  vary  if  they  are  to  be  identified 
in  the  Table. 

Glancing  at  the  "Card  Imaged"  deviations  in  Table  XIV,  in  search 
for  "significant"  values,  our  eye  rests  for  a  moment  at  Set  /,  of  the  1st 
1000  upon  the  +3  under  "Number,"  but  upon  noting  under  "Number"  on 
the  "Card  Not  Imaged"  side  of  the  table  the  deviation  of  +3  (Set  11,  2d 

137  Revue  Philosophiquc.  1884,  18:617. 


66  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

iooo)  and  +5  (Set  19,  2d  1000),  we  search  for  the  largest  chance  devia- 
tion under  Number,  and  find  it  to  be  ±5,  of  which  we  note  there  are  six 
cases  in  the  table ;  our  "significant"  deviation  must  be  higher.  We  find 
+6  several  times  (Sets  25,  49,  and  66),  but  none  higher  until  the  last  sec- 
tion (C)  of  the  table  is  reached,  where  we  see  +14  to  +30.  Evidently  we 
cannot  be  quite  satisfied  with  the  +6;  especially  since  it  occurs  in  only 
3%  of  the  sets.  Searching  thus  for  significant  deviations,  we  find  the 
largest  deviations  to  be  as  follows : 

TABLE  XVIII. 
Largest  deviations  in  Table  XIV. 

Card  Not  Imaged  Card  Imaged 

Card     Color     No.      Suit  W  Card  Color     No.      Suit  W 

+s       +13         +5         +8  -11  +s  +7         +6         +8  -7 

_!          -p          -4          -6          +9  _!  _8          -5  -6  +7 

In  every  case  but  one  the  positive  deviations  of  the  R  guesses  on  the 
cards  and  the  negative  deviation  of  the  wholly  wrong  guesses  (W)  are 
as  large  on  the  "Card  Not  Imaged"  side  of  this  table  as  upon  the  "Card 

Imaged"  side. 

Evidently,  if  we  have  any  "significant"  deviations  in  the  first  100 
Sets  of  Table  XIV  they  are  not  to  be  discriminated  from  chance  devia- 
tions by  merely  "inspecting"  the  table.  We  shall  have  to  resort  to  sta- 
tistical analysis. 

Analysis  of  Results. 

Suppose,  for  the  sake  of  illustrating  our  method,  some  influence 
working  for  R  cases  has  been  present  in  our  experiments,  but  was  too 
slight  to  be  revealed  in  Table  XIV  because  the  deviations  incorporat- 
ing it  do  not  exceed  some  deviations  known  to  be  caused  by  chance 
alone — suppose  this  influence  present,  but  masked  by  the  large  varia- 
tions of  chance,  how  can  it  be  detected?  It  might  be  discovered  by  sub- 
jecting the  data  to  various  analyses  which  our  method  of  experimenta- 
tion permits,  or  to  certain  mathematical  treatment  already  common  in 
scientific  investigation. 

Let  us  give  our  attention  first  to  the  various  analyses. 

If  the  various  ways  of  "imaging"  the  card  have  a  varying  effect 
upon  the  influence,  the  R  cases  (correct  judgments  or  guesses)  would 
fall  disproportionately  upon  one  or  two  of  the  die-spots,  which,  in  the  ex- 
periments, determined  these  favorable  conditions ;    if  the  influence  is  ac- 


GUESSING  OF   PLAYING-CARDS 


67 


companied  by  increased  certainty  in  the  consciousness  of  the  reagent, 
R  cases  would  fall  more  frequently  upon  the  Highly  Graded  guesses 
than  upon  the  others ;  if  the  distance  between  experimenter  and  reagent, 
or  if  the  length  of  the  interval  of  impression,  is  a  factor  of  which  the 
influence  is  a  function,  and  these  factors  were  varied  in  experimenta- 
tion, appropriate  analyses  would  show  increased  frequency  of  R  cases 
upon  the  optimal  distance  or  time ;  etc.  In  all  these  analyses  the  result 
would  yield  a  deviation  from  the  probable  value  larger  than  the  devia- 
tions in  Table  XIV,  and,  perhaps,  sufficiently  large  to  be  considered  de- 
cisive. 

The  increasing  feebleness  of  such  an  influence  which  might  be 
smothered  in  the  tables  of  totals  or  deviations  and  yet  which  might  be 
detected  by  analysis  would  correspond  to  the  increase  in  the  number  of 
experiments  we  choose  to  inspect,  provided  the  influence  is  not  confined 
to  one  or  two  sets,  but  is  somewhat  general :  the  greater  the  aggregate 
number  of  experiments  under  consideration,  the  more  sensitive  is  our 
system  of  measurement,  and  the  slighter  may  the  influence  be  which  can 
be  decisively  revealed. 


Illustration. 

To  illustrate,  we  might  inspect  the  deviations  in  the  last  set  (V) 
in  Table  XIV.  As  many  wholly  wrong  guesses  were  made  in  the  "Card 
Imaged"  experiments  as  in  the  "Card  Not  Imaged",  and  both,  accord- 
ing to  Table  XIV,  may  be  chance  deviations.  The  deviations  under 
Color  (+7)  and  Suit  (+3)  are  surpassed  by  chance  deviations  (+13  and 
+8)  ;  the  deviation  under  Card  (+8)  is  a  little  greater  than  that  made  by 
chance  (+5).  The  deviation  under  Number  alone  (+14)  greatly  exceeds 
any  of  cur  chance  deviations  (+5).  The  apparently  significant  devia- 
tions then  are  limited  to  Card  and  Number.  Are  these  really  significant  ? 
And  do  the  others  mask  some  positive  influence  working  for  R  cases  ? 

If  we  distribute  the  R  cases  (correct  judgments  or  guesses)  over 
the  die-spots  which  determined  the  conditions  of  the  respective  experi- 
ments in  this  set,  and  express  their  frequency  in  per  cent,  we  get  Table 
XIX.     Table  XX  shows  the  deviations: 


68  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

TABLE  XIX. 

Per  Cent  of  R  Cases. 

Die-Spot  Even.  Die-Spot  Odd. 

Die.                               R  Cases        W    Tot.  Die.  R  Cases               W  Tot. 

Spot             Card  Color  No.  Suit  Spot  Card  Color  No.  Suit 

Probable  %  2.5      50      10      25      45  2.5      50      10      25      45 

2                    6.3      56      31      31      25      16  /  33.3      89      56      44        6      18 

4                    0.0      67        o      27      27       15  3  5-0      35       15       15      60      20 

6                    0.0      56        6      28      39      18  5  15-4      77      tf>      38      IS      13 

TABLE  XX. 

Deviations 

^  +3.8      +6    +21      +6    -20  z       +30.8    +39    +46    +19    -39 

4  -2.5    +17    -10      +2    -18  j         +2.5    -15      +5    -10    +15 

6  -2.5      +6-4+3-6  5       +12.9    +27    +36    +13    -20 

Upon  inspecting  Table  XX  we  see  immediately  that  under  every 
head  Die-spots  1  and  5  are  favored.  Moreover,  although  the  number 
of  experiments  upon  which  the  per  cents  are  reckoned,  as  shown  in  the 
last  column  of  Table  XIX,  is  sufficiently  small  to  permit  large  chance 
deviations,  we  must  certainly  recognize  the  deviations  on  Die-spot  1  as 
significant.  If  we  feel  slightly  uncertain  about  the  significance  of  the 
deviations  on  Die-spot  5,  we  can  suspend  judgment  until  the  results  of 
other  analyses  are  examined. 

If  we  collect  the  R  cases  in  the  11  guesses  out  of  the  100  which 
were  made  with  a  greater  degree  of  certainty  than  were  the  others,  and 
calculate  their  per  cent  of  frequency  and  reckon  the  deviations  from 
the  probable  per  cent,  we  get: 

TABLE  XXI. 

Per  cent  of  R  Cases  in  High-Grade  Guesses,  Compared  with  per  cent  of  R  Cases 

in  Guesses  of  all  Grades. 

Card  Color  No.  Suit  W 

Grade    High    27  91  45  55  9 

Probable    %    2.5  50  10  25  45 

Deviation*    +24.5  +41  +35  +3°  -36 

♦These  deviations  can  be  made  comparable  to  those  in  Table  XIV  by  divid- 
ing them  by  two ;  which  will  permit  a  comparison,  between  the  total  Guesses  (of 
the  Imaged  Experiments)  and  the  guesses  given  a  high  grade  of  certainty: 

Card  Color  No.  Suit  W 

All   Grades    +8  +7  +14  +3  -7 

Grade   High    +13  +21  +18  +15  -18 


GUESSING  OF   PLAYING-CARDS  69 

And  if  we  distribute  them  over  the  die-spots,  we  get : 


TABLE  XXII. 

Even   Spots 

Odd  Spots 

R  Cases 

W  Total 

R  Cases 

w 

rot 

Die 

Card 

Color  No.  Suit 

Die 

Card  Color 

No.  Suit 

2      .  .  . 

i                  i 

i 

i     . . 

■  •       3 

2 

I 

5 

4    ■■■ 

i 

i 

3    ■■ 

0 

6    ... 

0 

5    ■■ 

3 

2 

I 

I 

4 

Totals 

2                         I 

2 

3 

S 

2 

2 

I 

9 

There  can  be  no  longer  any  serious  doubt  about  the  presence  in  this 
set  of  experiments,  of  some  influence  beyond  chance  working  for  R 
cases ;  it  is  operative  in  guessing  upon  the  Card,  Color,  Number,  and 
Suit;  it  is  effective  under  the  conditions  of  the  experiment  determined 
by  Die-spots  i  and  5 ;  and  it  is  associated  with  the  reagent's  feeling  of 
certainty  in  making  the  guess.  Analyses  have  magnified  the  deviations, 
some  of  which  in  Table  XIV  were  not  greater  than  chance  deviations, 
have  made  them  sufficiently  conspicuous  to  be  decisive,  and  have  re- 
vealed some  of  the  general  characteristics  of  the  influence  thus  de- 
tected.138 

In  a  similar  way  we  may  set  to  work  on  the  analyses  of  the  first 
100  sets  of  Table  XIII.  We  provisionally  disregard  the  possibility  of 
the  operation  of  a  general  faculty  of  "lucidity,"  which,  conceivably, 
would  be  operative  on  the  "Card  Not  Imaged"  side  of  our  Tables  as 
well  as  on  the  "Card  Imaged"  side,  and,  assuming  the  presence  of  some 
real  thought-transference  which  is  so  slight  in  amount  as  to  be  smoth- 
ered in  the  chance  deviations  of  Table  XIV,  we  may  expect  to  detect  it, 
(a)  if  it  varies  in  any  way  with  the  kinds  of  imagery  in  which  the  ex- 
perimenter holds  the  card  in  his  mind,  (b)  if  it  depends  upon  a  cor- 
respondence between  the  form  of  imagery  in  which  the  impression 
comes  to  the  reagent  and  the  form  of  imagery  in  which  the  ex- 
perimenter holds  the  card  in  his  mind,  or  (c)  if  its  functioning  is  cor- 
related with  higher  certainty  in  the  reagent's  mind. 

Relation  Between  R  Cases  and  Experimenter's  Imagery. 

(a)  If  we  distribute  the  R  cases  over  the  six  die-spots,  which  con- 
trolled the  conditions  of  the  experiment,  we  shall  get  tables  compar- 
able to  Tables  XIX  and  XX,  above,  from  which  we  may  learn  by  search- 


138  por  further  treatment  of  these  results,  see  infra,  pp.  121  ft. 


Card  Imaged. 

Die- 

R    Cases               W 

Total 

Spot 

Card  Color  No.    Suit 

/ 

44     838     162     439     765 

1681 

3 

50    826     188    430     762 

1682 

5 

54     840     172     443     747 

1672 

70  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

ing  for  unequal  distribution  whether  thought-transference  was  a  func- 
tion of  the  imagery  in  the  mind  of  the  experimenter. 

Table  XXIII  shows  the  distribution  of  R  cases  in  98  sets,139  or  9800 
experiments,  over  the  die-spots.  Table  XXIV  gives  the  per  cents,  and 
Table  XXV  the  deviations  of  the  latter  from  the  probable  per  cents. 

TABLE  XXIII. 
Number  of  R    cases  distributed  over  the  die-spots   (9800  Experiments). 

Card  Not  Imaged. 
D;e.  R   Cases  W    Total 

Spot  Card  Color  No.  Suit 

2  47    80S     162     394     703     1581 

4  54    819     167     411     656     1548 

6  38    813     146    424    751     1636 

TABLE  XXIV. 
Per  Cent. 

Prob.  %     2.50      50      10      25      45     16 .7  2.50  50  10  25      45  16 .7 

2                 2.97    50.9    10.2   24.8    44.4     16. 1            1  2.62  49.9  9.6  26.1  45.5  17.1 

4                  3-49    53°    10.8   26.6    42.4     15.8           3  2.97  49.1  1 1.2  25.6  45.3  172 

6                 2.32    49.7     8.9  25.9    45.9    16.7           5  3.23  50.2  10.3  26.5  44.7  17.1 

TABLE  XXV. 
Deviations  from  Probability. 

2  +0-47    +0.9   +0-2   -0.2   -0.6    -0.6  /    +0.12    -0.1  -0.4     +1.1    +0.5    +°-4 

4  +0.99    +3.0   +0.8   +1.6   -2.6    -0.9  3    +0.47    -0.9  +1.2     +0.6   +0.3    +0.5 

6  -0.18    -0.3   -1.1   +0.9   +0.9      0.0  5    +0.73    +°-2  +0.3     +1.5   -0.3    +0.4 

It  is  evident  from  Table  XXV  that,  after  segregation,  the  devia- 
tions are  not  noticeably  magnified  upon  any  one  or  two  of  the  die-spots, 
as  they  were  in  Table  XX,  and  consequently,  the  supposed  influence  is 
independent  of  the  varying  conditions  of  experimentation  determined  by 
the  die-spots.  Visual,  auditory,  and  combined  imagery  in  which  the 
card  is  held  in  the  experimenter's  mind  are  equally  indifferent  to  the  in- 
fluence. And  since  the  positive  deviations  in  the  chance  series  (on  the 
even  die-spots  )  under  Card,  Color,  and  Suit,  exceed  those  in  the  regu- 
lar experiments  (on  the  odd  die-spots),  and  the  largest  positive  devia- 
tion under  Number  (+1.2)  is  not  large  (as  may  be  seen  by  comparison 
with  the  deviations  on  the  "Card  Not  Imaged"  side  of  Table  XVII  ;140' 


139  Two  sets,  in  which  the  experimenters  failed  to  discriminate  between  the 
even  numbers,  are  omitted. 
140  Supra,  p.  65. 


GUESSING  OF   PLAYING-CARDS 


71 


the  average  of  Sets  6,  7,  and  8  there,  the  aggregate  number  of  experi- 
ments of  which  is  1478,  which  is  close  enough  to  1662  for  comparison, 
we  find  to  be  +1.7),  the  supposed  influence  remains  completely  masked. 


Relation  Between  R  Cases  and  Congruity  of  Imagery. 

(b)  To  determine  whether  our  masked  influence  is  dependent  upon 
a  correspondence  between  the  mode  of  imagery  in  which  the  impression 
of  a  card  comes  into  the  consciousness  of  the  reagent  and  the  mode  of 
imagery  in  which  the  card  is  held  in  the  mind  of  the  experimenter,  and, 
if  it  is,  to  reveal  the  presence  of  this  influence,  we  may,  perhaps,  limit 
ourselves  to  a  tabulation  of  the  R  cases  on  the  "Card,"  the  most  favor- 
able case  for  thought-transference,  according  to  the  imagery  of  the  re- 
agent, over  the  die-spots  which  determined  the  experimenter's  treatment 
of  the  card.  This  tabulation  gives  the  following  table,  in  which  V,  K, 
and  A,  stand  for  the  modes  of  imagery,  Visual,  Kinasethetic,  and  Audi- 
tory, and  G  stands  for  "pure  guess"  made  without  any  determining  im- 
agery. 

TABLE  XXVI. 

R  Cases  on  the  "Card"  according  to  the  Imagery  of  the  Reagent. 
(100  sets  of  100  experiments  each.) 


Card  Not  Imaged 

Card  Imaged 

Die 

V 

K 

A 

G 

Total           Die 

V 

K 

A 

G 

Total 

2 

30 

8 

7 

5 

50                / 

25 

6 

9 

7 

47 

4 

27 

8 

14 

4 

53               3 

24 

11 

6 

10 

5i 

6 

17 

8 

8 

5 

38               5 

28 

8 

9 

10 

55 

Totals 

74 

24 

29 

14 

141 

77 

25 

24 

27 

153 

TABLE  XXVII. 

Per  cent. 

2 

60.0 

16.0 

14.0 

10.0 

1 

53-2 

12.8 

19.2 

14.9 

4 

50.0 

151 

26.4 

7-5 

3 

47.0 

21.6 

1 1.8 

19.6 

6 

44.8 

21. 1 

21. 1 

13-2 

5 

50.9 

H-5 

16.4 

18.2 

Totals      52.5      17.0      20.6 


9-9 


50.3      16.3      15.7      17.6 


TABLE  XXVIII. 
Deviations  of  per  cent  from  per  cent  of  total  cases. 


2 

+7-5 

-1.0 

-6.6 

+0.1 

4 

-1.6 

-1.9 

+5-8 

-2.4 

6 

-7-7 

+4.1 

+0.5 

+3-3 

+2.9 

-3-3 

+0.6 


-3-5  +3-5 
+5-3  -3-9 
-1.8      +0.7 


-2.7 
+2.0 

+0.6 


72  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

In  Table  XXVI  we  find  that  the  number  of  R  guesses  on  the  Card 
was  47  when  the  experiment  was  conditioned  by  Die-spot  /,  i.  e.,  when 
the  card  was  held  in  the  experimenter's  mind  in  visual  form,  and  that  25 
of  them  were  made  from  Visual  imagery  in  the  mind  of  the  reagent. 
From  Table  XXVII  we  read  that  53.2%  of  the  correct  guesses  on  cards 
held  by  the  experimenter  in  visual  form  were  made  by  the  reagent  from 
visual  imagery;  that  50.370  of  all  correct  guesses  on  cards  held  by  the 
experimenter  in  any  form  whatever  were  made  from  visual  imagery. 
Table  XXVIII  shows  this  deviation  in  favor  of  correspondence  of 
imagery  as  +2.9.  Remembering  that  Die-spot  J  determined  the  Kinaes- 
thetic  form,  and  Die-spot  5  the  Combined  Visual-Kinaesthetic-Auditory 
form,  the  reader  can  see  in  the  deviations  some  remarkably  consistent,  if 
slight,  indications  of  a  correspondence  of  imagery  in  the  different  forms: 
positive  deviations  of  frequency  of  guesses  from  visual  imagery  upon 
Die-spots  J,  and  5,  the  larger  upon  the  former  which  determined  the 
Visual  form  unmixed  with  other  forms  in  the  experimenter's  mind ;  from 
the  Kinaesthetic  form  upon  Die-spot  J,  with  greatest  negative  deviation 
upon  Die-spot  1  which  alone  ruled  out  any  Kinaesthetic  form ;  from  the 
Auditory  form  upon  Die-spot  5.  The  largest  positive  deviation  for  the 
"pure  guesses"  is  found  upon  Die-spot  J,  the  most  difficult  for  the  ex- 
perimenter to  entertain  vividly  in  his  mind.  These  deviations  are  re- 
markably consistent ;  only  one  entry  is  out  of  order  and  that  is  the  +3.5 
under  Auditory  guesses  upon  Die-Spot  1,  which,  like  Die-Spot  3,  deter- 
mined imagery  free  from  an  auditory  component,  and  which  because  of 
the  greater  ease  in  keeping  it  pure  should  have  been  correlated  with  a 
negative  deviation  even  greater  than  the  -3.9  upon  Die-spot  J.  It  is 
true,  also,  that  there  should  have  been  a  positive  deviation  under  K  upon 
Die-spot  5,  and,  perhaps,  a  larger  one  under  V ,  but  these  failings  in 
terms  of  quantity  of  deviation  are  not  serious.  The  serious  question  is 
whether  this  consistency  in  the  evidence  for  a  correspondence  of  imagery 
in  the  minds  of  experimenter  and  reagent  rests  upon  deviations  large 
enough  to  be  significant,  and  is  not  merely  a  fortuitous  coincidence 
among  chance  deviations.  Glancing  at  the  "Card  Not  Imaged"  side  of 
Table  XXVIII  we  find  even  stronger  evidence  for  an  affinity  of  V  for 
Die-spot  2,  of  K  for  Die-spot  6,  and  of  A  for  Die-spot  4;  yet  this  is  mere 
coincidence.  Moreover,  if  we  were  to  assign  Visual  imagery  to  Die-spot 
2,  Kinaesthetic  to  Die-spot  6,  and  Mixed  imagery  to  Die-spot  4,  we 
should  not  only  have  stronger  evidence,  because  of  larger  deviations,  but 
we  should  have  even  greater  consistency  in  the  evidence  for  correspond- 


GUESSING  OF  PLAYING-CARDS  73 

ence  between  these  hypothetical  forms  of  imagery  and  the  imagery  of  the 
reagent's  impressions. 

Our  analysis  here  did  not  appreciably  magnify  deviations  into  values 
distinguishable  from  chance  variation.  If  there  is  a  correspondence 
between  the  form  of  imagery  from  which  the  reagent  makes  a  success- 
ful guess  upon  a  card  and  the  form  in  which  the  card  is  represented  in 
the  experimenter's  consciousness,  it  is  too  slight  to  be  detected  in  these 
tables,  and  its  support  of  our  supposed  influence  for  R  cases  is  not 
available. 

Relation  Between  R  Cases  and  the  Feeling  of  Certainty. 

(c)  To  determine  whether  a  supposed  influence  working  for  R 
cases  is  present  in  association  with  a  feeling  of  certainty,  on  the  part  of 
the  reagent,  that  his  guess  stands  a  much  better  chance  of  being  right 
than  a  "pure  guess"  would  stand,  we  can  distribute  the  R  guesses  on  the 
"Card"  over  the  various  grades,  and  compare  their  frequencies,  and  we 
can  tabulate  an  equal  number  each  of  guesses  given  low  grades  and 
of  guesses  given  high  grades,  count  the  R  cases,  and  compare  the  two 
groups. 

The  distribution  of  the  R  guesses  on  the  "Card"  made  by  all  re- 
agents who  graded  guesses  as  high  as  A  or  B  in  the  descending  series  of 
grades  of  certainty  A,  B,  C,  D,  Pure  Guess,  is  as  follows: 

TABLE  XXIX. 

R  Cases  on  the  "Card"  Distributed  Over  Reagent's  Grades  of  Certainty. 
(10,000  Experiments,  4865+5135.) 
Card  Not  Imaged.                                            Card  Imaged 

Grades            A        B         C         D    Guess  Total        A        B         C  D  Guess  Tot. 

R    Cases.... 8        27        50        41         15'     141            5        27        62  33        26      153 

Per   Cent.... 5.7      19.3      35.5      29.1      10.6                     3.3      17.6     40.5  21.6      17.0 

Difference -2.4     -1 .7     +5.0  -7.5     +6.4 

Grades  given  the  10,000  guesses,  % 3.9     14.0     37.1     26.2     16.3*2.57 

Or  if  we  group  the  R  cases  about  the  medium  grade, 

A  +  B         C         D  +  Guess                A  +  B  C  D  +  Guess 

25-0          35-5            397                            20.9  40.5  38.6 

Difference  -4.1  +5.0  -1.1 

The  per  cents  in  this  table  show  that  R  guesses  on  the  "Card"  are 
more  frequently  given  low  grades  than  high,  and  the  deviations  show 
that  R  guesses  given  high  grades  occur  as  frequently  when  the  card  is 

*  Undetermined. 


74 


THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 


unknown  to  the  experimenter  as  when  it  is  held  vividly  in  his  conscious- 
ness. The  distribution  of  the  grades  approximates  the  complete  dis- 
tribution. There  is  no  relation  here  between  an  influence  working  for 
successful  guesses  and  the  feeling  of  certainty  that  the  guess  stands  a 
better  chance  of  being  right  than  a  pure  guess  would  stand. 

Another  tabulation  can  be  made,  however,  which  will  test  this  rela- 
tion further.  Guesses  given  high  grades  (A  or  B)  may  be  selected 
from  every  set  in  which  they  are  found,  and  the  R  cases  compared  with 
the  R  cases  in  a  selection  of  as  many  neighboring  guesses  given  with 
low  grades  (D  or  Pure  Guess).  In  order  to  make  the  selection  of  the 
data  in  a  purely  mechanical  way,  and  to  avoid  a  disproportionate  con- 
tribution from  any  one  or  a  few  sets,  the  number  of  guesses  of  high 
grade  and  of  low  grade  selected  from  each  set  was  limited  to  10  each, 
chosen  immediately  after  the  25th  experiment  of  the  set,  when  the  re- 
agent should  be  at  his  best,  or  from  any  part  of  the  set  to  complete  the 
quota  as  nearly  as  the  number  of  highly  graded  guesses  in  the  set  would 
permit;  in  every  case  the  nearest  guess  with  a  low  grade  (preference 
given  to  "Pure  Guess")  was  selected.  Sets  in  which  no  guesses  were 
given  high  grades  were  omitted. 

The  following  table  gives  the  number  of  R  cases,  number  of  Wrong 
cases,  and  the  number  of  experiments,  for  both  the  guesses  graded  Low 
and  the  guesses  graded  High. 


TABLE  XXX. 
R  Cases  in  Guesses  Graded  Low  and  Graded  High. 


Graded  Low. 

Graded 

High. 

Year 

Card 

Color 

No. 

Suit 

W 

Total 

Card 

Color 

No. 

Suit 

W 

Tot. 

1912-13 

5 

103 

22 

49 

104 

2^? 

10 

120 

32 

73 

84 

220 

1913-14 

3 

89 

17 

58 

95 

192 

6 

106 

26 

59 

74 

192 

1914-15 

8 

no 

24 

62 

no 

229 

13 

in 

29 

63 

108 

229 

1915-16 

3 

35 

7 

20 

3i 

67 

1 

3i 

5 

18 

32 

67 

Totals 

19 

337 

70 

189 

340 

708 

30 

368 

92 

213 

298 

708 

TABLE 

XXXI. 

Per  cent. 

1912-13 

2.27 

46.8 

1 0.0 

22.3 

47-3 

4-55 

54-5 

14-5 

33-2 

382 

1913-14 

1.56 

46.3 

8.9 

30.2 

49-5 

312 

55-2 

13-5 

30.7 

38.6 

1914-15 

3-49 

48.0 

10.5 

27.1 

48.0 

5-68 

48.5 

12.7 

27-5 

47.2 

1915-16 

4.88 

52.2 

10.4 

29.8 

45-3 

1.49 

46.3 

7-5 

26.8 

47-8 

Totals 


2.68      47.6      9.9    26.7      48.0 


4.24      52.0     13.0    30.1     40.7 


GUESSING  OF   PLAYING-CARDS  75 

TABLE  XXXII. 
Deviations. 

Graded  Low.  Graded  High. 

Year          Card    Color    No.     Suit      W  Card  Color  No.  Suit     W 

1912-13       -0.23      -3.2      0.0    -27      +2.3  +2.05  +45    +4-5  +8.2    -6.8 

1913-14       -0.94      -3.7    -1.1     +5-2      +45  +0-62  +S-2    +3S  +5-7    -6.4 

1914-15       +0.99      -2.0    +0.5    +2.1      +3.0  +3.18  -1.5    +2.7  +2.5    +2.2 

1915-16       +1.98      +2.2    +0.4    +4.8      +0.3  -1 .01  -3.7    -2.5  +1.8    +2.8 

Totals         +0.18      -2.4    -0.1     +1.7      +3.0  +1.54      +2.0    +3.0    +5.1     -43 

The  amounts  of  these  deviations  do  not  appear  beyond  chance  varia- 
tion when  the  number  of  cases  is  considered,  since  they  can  be  dupli- 
cated by  averages  of  four  entries  in  Table  XIV  under  "Card  Not  Im- 
aged" ;  but  the  consistency  of  the  positive  deviations  appears  signifi- 
cant: in  all  cases,  except  four,  the  deviations  of  R  cases  under  "Grade 
High"  are  positive  and  are  higher  than  the  few  corresponding  positive 
deviations  under  "Grade  Low."  To  be  sure  that  a  supposed  influence 
for  R  cases  is  shown  here  in  correlation  with  a  feeling  of  certainty, 
we  must  ascertain  whether  this  consistency  of  positive  deviations  may 
be  fortuitous.  Might  it  be  matched  by  another  sampling  of  an  equal 
number  of  R  cases  on  "Grades  Low"?  The  deviations  of  an  additional 
sampling  are  shown  in 


TABLE  XXXIII. 

Deviations. 

Graded  Low. 

Year 

Card 

Color    No.     Suit 

W 

Total 

1912-13 

-1.14 

+1.8    -1.4    -5.0 

-1.4 

220 

1913-14 

-1.98 

+4.7    -4-3      0.0 

-3-3 

192 

1914-15 

+0.12 

-2.8      0.0    -0.6 

+2.6 

229 

1915-16 

-I.OI 

-0.7    +3-4    -Li 

+13 

67 

Totals 

-0-95 

+0.9    -1.2    -1.8 

-0.4 

708 

So  far  as  this  table  gives  testimony,  the  apparent  significance  noted 
above  is  increased.  Further  analysis,  however,  is  competent  to  magnify 
those  deviations  if  they  really  signify  the  presence  of  an  influence 
working  for  R  cases.  The  supposed  influence  would  be  operative  on 
"Cards  Imaged"  alone  and  could  be  detected  by  re-tabulating  all  of  the 
R  cases  of  the  708  guesses  given  with  a  high  grade  of  certainty,  in  such 
a  way  as  to  segregate  the  regular  from  the  control  experiments,  as  is 
shown  below : 


76  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

XXXIV. 

Guesses   Given    High   Grades. 

Card  Not  Imaged  Card  Imaged 

R    Cases  W  Tot.  R    Cases  W  Tot. 

Year          Card    Color    No.  Suit  Card  Color    No.  Suit 

1912-13         4           54       17  30  39  104  6  66       15  43  45  116 

1913-14        3           56       10  26  34  94  3  50       16  33  40  98 

1914-15         6           49       17  27  48  102  7  62       12  36  60  127 

1915-16         1           10         2         7  8  19  o  21         3  11  24  48 

Totals         14         169       46       90       129       319        16         199       46     123      169       389. 

TABLE  XXXV. 
Per  Cent. 

1912-13         2.82      51.9     16.3    28.8      37.5                   5.17  56.9  12.9  37.1  38.8 

J9I3-I4         3-19      595     10.6    27.6      36.2                   3.06  51.0  16.3  33.7  40.8 

1914-15         5-89      48.0     16.7    26.5      47.1                   5.51  48.8  94  28.4  47.3 

1915-16         5.26      52.6     10.5    36.8      42.1                   3.33  43.8  6.2  22.9  50.0 

Totals  4.39      53.0     14.4    28.2      40.4  4.11       51. 1     11.8    31.6    43.5 

TABLE  XXXVI. 

Deviation. 

1912-13  +0.32  +1.9  46.3    +3-8  -7.5  +2.67  +6.9  +2.9  +12.1  -6.2 

1913-14  +0.69  +9.5  +0.6    +2.6  -8.8  +0.56  +1.0  +6.3  +8.7  -4.2 

1914-15  +3-39  -2.0  +6.7    +1.5  +2.1  +3.01  -1.2  -0.6  +3.4  +2.3 

1915-16  +2.76  +2.6  +0.5  +11.8  -2.9  +0.83  -6.2  -3.8  -2.1  +5.0 

Totals        +1.89      +3.0    +4.4    +3.2      -4.6  +1.61      +1.1    +1.8    +6.6    -1.5 

Since  the  positive  deviations  in  the  control  experiments  (when  the 
card  was  not  imaged)  are  about  as  large  and  are  as  consistent  as  in  the 
regular  experiments  (when  the  card  was  imaged),  we  must  infer  that 
either  the  consistency  of  the  deviations  is  fortuitous  or  the  supposed  in- 
fluence for  R  cases  is  as  freely  operative  in  guesses  upon  unknown  as 
upon  "Imaged"  cards.  The  latter  alternative  is  supported  by  the  con- 
sistency of  the  deviations  only,  since,  with  the  possible  exception  of  one 
under  "Suit"  (which,  however,  is  matched  by  the  sum  of  adjacent 
chance  deviations  in  Sets  25  and  26  in  Table  XIV),  no  deviations  ex- 
ceed in  size  chance  variation.141 

Our  data  do  not  show  by  analyses,  designed  to  detect  an  influence 
for  R  cases  supposedly  correlated  with  a  feeling  of  certainty  in  guessing, 


141  Cf.,  Table  XVIII,  supra,  p.  66. 


GUESSING   OF  PLAYING-CARDS  77 

that  such  an  influence  was  present.  Tables  of  analyses,  however,  did 
furnish  evidence  which  was  only  apparent ;  and  consequently,  besides 
vindicating  the  analyses  themselves,  they  suggest  the  necessity  for  de- 
termining definitely  how  large  a  deviation  in  any  particular  case  must 
be  in  order  to  be  considered  significant.  This  involves  a  statistical  use 
of  mathematical  formulae,  which  was  referred  to  above  in  the  discussion 
of  methods  of  treating  our  results,  and  which  will  receive  consideration 
immediately  after  the  results  of  two  more  kinds  of  analysis,  and  a  cer- 
tain common  criticism,  are  inspected. 

Variation  in  Distance. 
Upon  the  supposition  that  some  influence  for  R  cases  concealed  in 
our  tables  follows  the  law  of  the  radiation  of  energy,  we  would  expect 
the  number  of  R  cases  to  vary  inversely  with  the  square  of  the  distance 
between  experimenter  and  reagent.  A  segregation  of  results  would 
then  increase  disproportionately  the  positive  deviations  from  the  prob- 
able per  cent  on  the  smaller  distances.  Only  847  experiments  are 
available  for  this  analysis,  the  deviations  of  which  are  shown  below : 

TABLE  XXXVII. 
Deviations,  in  Per  Cent,  of  R  Cases  according  to  distance  in  Meters. 


Card  Not 

Imaged 

Card  Ir 

laged 

R   Cases 

W 

Tot. 

R    Cases 

W 

Tot. 

Meters 

Card 

Color  No. 

Suit 

Card  Color    No. 

Suit 

1. 

+1.7 

+37    -0.5 

+1-3 

-2.9 

95 

+1.2    -1.3    -0.3 

-1.8 

+2.5 

82 

2. 

+1-5 

+6.0    -4.0 

+11.0 

-3-0 

50 

-0.1     -0.1     +4.3 

-2.6 

-4.8 

49 

3- 

+2.0 

-9.1     +1.4 

-57 

+9-5 

88 

+1.4    -5.0    -0.8 

+i-3 

+6-3 

76 

4-6 

+0.2 

-4-1     +3-5 

-0.7 

+0.9 

37 

+0.5    -1.5    +8.2 

-07 

-2.6 

33 

6. 

+0.4 

+3.0    +0.8 

+1.4 

-2.8 

102 

+1.0    -2.1     +1.3 

-2.4 

+2.9 

US 

10. 

+0.6 

+7.8    -2.2 

+3-1 

-5-9 

64 

-2.5    -1.8    -4.6 

-3-6 

+1.4 

56 

Since  the  larger  positive  deviations  are  not  so  frequent  in  the 
"Card  Imaged"  part  of  the  table  as  in  the  "Card  not  Imaged"  part,  are 
not  so  frequent  for  the  smaller  distances  as  for  the  greater,  and  are  not 
conspicuously  larger  than  the  negative  deviations,  our  data  do  not  show 
that  distance  makes  any  difference  to  the  supposed  influence  for  R  cases 
which  consequently  is  not  thereby  detected. 

Variation  in  Time. 
If  the  time  of  the  critical  interval  (while  the  experimenter  is  hold- 
ing "imagery"  of  the  card  in  his  mind  and  the  reagent  is  awaiting  an 


78  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

impression  of  a  card  or  is  making  up  his  guess)  is  a  function  of  R 
cases  we  might  expect  by  tabulating  R  cases  according  to  length  of 
the  interval  to  find  a  greater  positive  deviation  in  per  cent  of  R  cases 
on  the  optimal  interval.  In  24  sets  the  interval  was  varied  from  10  to 
60  seconds  for  the  early  series,  which  enables  us  to  distribute  42  R  cases 
on  the  "Card,"  when  the  "Card  was  Imaged,"  over  the  following  inter- 
vals, in  seconds. 

TABLE  XXXVIII. 

Deviation  in  R  Cases  according  to  Time  of  Impression. 

Interval    (seconds)     10  15  20  30  40  60 

R    Cases    5               t  24              I  7  4 

Number  of  experiments 220  70  1050  50  610  280 

Per  Cent  R    2.3           1.4  2.3           2.0  1.1  1.4 

Deviations  -0.2  -1.1  -0.2  -0.5  -1.4  -1.1 

The  absence  of  positive  deviations  indicates  that  there  was  no  in- 
fluence for  R  cases  operative  in  these  experiments  which  was  a  function 
of  the  time  of  the  critical  interval.142 

Test  for  Retarded  Effect. 

Another  supposition  deserves  notice  here  before  we  begin  the  math- 
ematical treatment  of  our  data.  A  criticism  which  is  often  made  claims 
that  our  deviations  may  fail  to  show  a  telepathic  influence  because  it  is 
tardy  in  its  effect;  we  might  find  it  if  we  tabulated  the  coincidences  be- 
tween the  card  drawn  and  the  succeeding  instead  of  the  contemporane- 
ous guess.143  Such  a  tabulation  has  been  made  from  the  data  procured 
in  1913-14:  25  sets  from  the  students  and  10  sets  from  the  "psychics." 
The  following  table  of  deviations,  per  1000  experiments,  is  comparable 
with  Table  XVII,  and  includes  the  deviations  for  the  total  number  of 
sets  by  students,  as  well  as  the  deviations  of  the  2d  succeeding  guess 
for  the  psychics. 


142  Apart  from  the  variation  in  the  length  of  the  critical  interval,  the  general 
method  demanded  from  15  to  20  seconds,  which  was  used  in  all  other  sets.  Of  21 
Reagents  for  whom  the  interval  was  varied,  3  preferred  10  seconds,  13  preferred  20 
seconds,  and  5  preferred  40  seconds.  In  Lodge's  experiments,  in  the  Tyrol,  in 
guessing  of  numbers  on  cards,  the  young  ladies  made  as  many  as  10  or  12  guesses 
in  a  minute  (Survival  of  Man,  p.  64).  The  Rawson  drawings  were  perceived  by 
the  percipient  in  10  seconds  (Proceedings  S.P.R.,  12:9-11). 

143  Cases  of  deferred  successes  have  been  reported  in  the  literature :  vide, 
Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  1892,  8 :  548. 


GUESSING   OF  PLAYING-CARDS 


79 


TABLE      XXXIX. 

Deviations  of  R  Cases  in  Coincidences  between  card  drawn — 
And  the  First  Succeeding  Guess: 

Card  Not  Imaged.  Card  Imaged. 

R    Cases  W    Tot.            R    Cases                   W    Tot. 

Card  Color    No.  Suit  Card  Color    No.  Suit 

Psychics    -0.7    -1.8    +0.8  -1.4  +1.5    467  -0.3  -3.5     -1.4  -1.6+3.6     533 

Students : 

Men,   4th    1000..  -1.2    -0.6    -0.9  -0.3  +1.7    482  +1.7  -1.6    +2.7  +1.2     o       518 

Women,  5th  1000  +0.5     -5.4    +0.9  -1.6  +4.8    496  +0.3  +I-4     -1-3  -°-2    °       5°4 

2500    -0.4    -2.7    +0.3  -0.6  +2.6  1229  +0.7  -0.6    +0.9  +0.4  +0.4  1271 

And  the  Second  Succeeding  Guess : 
Psychics    +0.3     +1.8    -0.8    +4.1     -1.5     467      -0.6    -0.5     -2.5    +1.1  +1.3     533 

The  deviations  under  "Card  Imaged"  show  no  obvious  advantage 
over  those  in  the  other  part  of  the  table,  or  over  comparable  deviations 
of  R  cases  in  coincidences  between  the  card  drawn  and  the  preceding 
guess,  and  between  cards  drawn  in  the  different  sets,  which  have  been 
found  (see  Table  LIII,  p.  129),  nor  is  there  significant  augmentation  of 
positive  deviations  when  the  R  cases  are  distributed  over  the  respective 
die-spots.  There  is  no  indication  of  an  influence  for  R  cases  which  is 
tardy  in  its  effect. 

Statistical  Treatment  of  Data  by  Use  of  Mathematical  Formulae. 

The  other  method  of  dealing  with  the  data  involves  the  application 
of  mathematical  formula;  to  the  data  in  the  aggregate  or  to  results  of 
analysis,  and  leads  to  precision  in  the  estimate  of  the  significance  of 
deviations.  The  "Card  Not  Imaged"  side  of  Tables  XIV  and  XVII 
furnishes  chance  deviations  from  the  most  probable  number  or  the  most 
probable  per  cent  which  have  been  of  service  in  comparing  the  deviations 
in  the  regular  experiments.  Rut  we  have  already  found  by  analysis  that 
causes  beyond  chance  might  yield  deviations  no  larger  (as  in  C,  Set  V , 
Table  XIV),14'  and  we  have  occasionally  passed  by,  in  our  analyses, 
some  positive  deviations  just  a  little  larger  than  any  chance  deviations 
in  the  tables  (e.  g.,  the  +6.6  in  the  total  under  Suit,  Table  XXXVI). 
Evidently  our  reliance  upon  extreme  chance  variations  is  unsatisfactory, 
in  a  test  for  some  influence  beyond  chance,  especially  when  the  influence 
may  conceivably  be  slight  and  our  deviations  relatively  small. 

The  mathematical  theory  of  probability   furnishes  several  tests  by 

i«  'Supra,  p.  63. 


80  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

which  such  a  slight  influence  might  be  detected.  A  distribution  curve 
of  the  chance  deviations  follows  a  law  from  which  an  equal  number  of 
deviations  resulting  in  part  from  other  causes  must  depart.  And  for- 
mulae, based  upon  this  law,  have  been  provided,  by  which  the  reliability 
of  central  measures  or  averages  may  be  found.  We  can,  then,  (a)  com- 
pare one  group  of  deviations  with  another  by  means  of  distribution 
curves;  and  (b)  we  can  apply  probability  formulas  to  any  particular 
measures  in  our  tables. 

Application  of  Probability  Formula  to  Central  Measures. 

For  the  sake  of  illustrating  the  latter  method,  suppose  we  choose 
from  Table  XVII 146  a  very  favorable  deviation,  say  +5.1  under  "Suit" 
in  the  4th  1000,  and  determine  (1)  the  probability  of  its  occurrence  by 
chance  alone,  (2)  how  large  it  should  be  in  order  to  be  decisive  as  an 
indication  of  some  cause  in  addition  to  chance,  and  (3)  how  many  ex- 
periments should  be  performed  in  order  to  raise  to  scientific  certainty 
the  probability  that  it  was  not  caused  by  chance  alone. 

( 1 )  According  to  Bernoulli's  Theorem,146  if  />  and  q  are  the  proba- 
bilities of  the  occurrence  and  non-occurrence,  respectively,  of  an  event, 
it  can  be  expected  with  a  probability  of 

o    nf                   e~y 
p  =  -t=  f *-"dt+     i , 

VtrJo  V  2irpqn 

that  the  actual  results  of  observation  (the  per  cent  of  observed  occur- 
rences) will  lie  within  the  field  of 

P±L, 


where 


=  W2f' 


*«  Supra,  p.  65. 

us  Vide,  E.  W.  Scripture :  The  New  Psychology,  1910,  p.  476.  Cf.,  also,  F. 
Y.  Edgeworth :  The  calculus  of  probabilities  applied  to  Psychical  Research.  Pro- 
ceedings S.  P.  R.,  1885,  3  :  190-9 ;    1886-87,  4 :  189-208. 


GUESSING  OF  PLAYING-CARDS  81 

Substituting,  we  have 

p  =  .25       (Chance  of  guessing  a  suit) 
<7=.75       (Chance  of  missing  a  suit) 
n=  518     (The  number  of  experiments) 
L  =  .o5i      (The  deviation  of  R  guesses  from  p) 

and,  by  performing  the  operations  indicated,147 

147 

log  p  =  9.39794  — 10 
log  q  =  9.87506  —  10 
log    2    =    0.30103 


log  2pq  =  1957403    - 

-20 

log     n    =    2.71433 

,       2Pl 
colog  —  =    3-14030 

colog  j^-  =    1. 57015 

=  .ogf 

log   L    =   8.70757   — 

10 

0.277720 

=  log  Y 

Y    =    1-8955 

log     v2  =    0.55544 

log  log    e  =   963778  - 

-  10 

0.19322 

=  log  log  e' 

log  e'        =    1.56040 

log  n        =    2.71433 

log  Vji    =    0.24857 

4-52330 

log  -£-  =  I.570I5 

7.04685   - 

- 10 

=  log  V 

*P  =    0.001114 

*(y)  =   0.9927 

P  =    O.993814 

The  4"(y)  value  was  found  directly  from  Bruno  Kampfe's  "Tafel  des  Integrals 

1     r?     = 
$(Y)  =  — —  f     e—t       dt"  (Wundt's  Philosophische  Studien,  1894,  Bd.  9:150)   ar- 

*)  0 

ranged  for  values  of  Y- 


82  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

we  find  Y=I-8955. 

and  W,  the  last  term  in  the  P-equation  above,  and  $(y),  the  first  term: 

9?  =  .001114 
^(Y)=-9927 


^  =  •993814; 

whence  we  get  0.9938  for  the  probability  that  chance  deviations  will 
not  exceed  this  limit  of  5.170!  or>  to  state  the  conclusion  in  another 
way,  we  may  expect  in  10,000  sets  of  518  guesses  on  suit,  62  chance 
deviations  greater  than  5.1%.  Since  this  value,  then,  lies  within  the 
field  of  chance  deviation,  although  the  probability  of  its  occurrence  by 
chance  is  fairly  low,  it  cannot  be  accepted  as  a  decisive  indication  of 
some  cause  beyond  chance  which  operated  in  favor  of  success  in 
guessing. 

(2)  Let  us  determine  how  large  the  deviation  should  have  been 
in  order  to  indicate  with  scientific  certainty  that  some  cause  in  addition 
to  chance  was  operative. 

To  make  an  application  of  Bayes's  Theorem,  known  as  the  Theo- 
rem of  Poisson,148  it  may  be  determined  with  a  probability  of 


V  ttJo 


-t' 


dt 


that  deviations  resulting  from  chance  causes  alone  will  lie  within  the 

limit  of 

p  ±  L 

when 


L  =  y 


MIT 


14(*  Vide,  Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung,  in  Encyklopadie  der  mathematischen 
Wissenschaften  mit  Einschluss  ihrer  Anwendungen,  Bd.  1.  Toil  II,  S.  762;  also 
Scripture :  Some  psychological  illustrations  of  the  theorems  of  Bernoulli  and  Pois- 
son, Am.  Jr.  Psychology,  1893-94,  6:431-432;  and  Todhunter:  A  History  of  the 
Mathematical  Theory  of  Probability.     Cambridge,  1865,  pp.  552-7. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  this  formula  differs  from  James  Bernoulli's,  which 
was  used  above,  in  dispensing  with  the  second  term  (¥)  in  the  P  equation.  Since 
we  here  assign  to  v  the  value  of  3.  the  value  of  $  (the  first  term)  becomes 
•9999779  (cf.,  Todhunter,  of-  cii.,  p.  553;  or,  Bertrand :  Calcul  des  Probability, 
Paris,  1889,  p.  331),  and  the  value  of  W,  the  omitted  term,  becomes  negligible.     For 


GUESSING  OF  PLAYING-CARDS  83 

and,  if  we  meet  the  requirement  of  a  degree  of  accuracy  usual  in  scien- 
tific work  by  making 

P  =  0.9999779, 
when  absolute  certainty  is 

P=l, 

then,  in  the  above  formulae, 

Y  =  3- 

Substituting,  and  performing  the  operations,  we  get 

P  =  .25  log  p  =  9.39794  —  10 

q  =  .75  log  q  =  9.87506  —  10 

n  =  518  colog  n  =  7.28567  —  10 

V  =  3  log  2  =  0.30103 

26.85970  —  30 

13.42985  -15  =  log  fe±- 
n  n 
log  y  =   0.47712 

13.90697  — 15  =  log  L 

L  =   0.08072. 

The  deviation,  therefore,  should  have  been  as  great  as  0.0807,  or 
8.1%,  in  order  to  be  satisfactory  evidence  for  some  cause  in  addition  to 
chance. 

(3)  Supposing  that  the  deviation  of  +5.1%  could  be  maintained  in 
continuing  the   experiments,   let   us   determine   how   many   experiments 


example,  with  this  assigned  value  of  7,  and  with  all  the  other  values  in  the  pre- 
ceding problem  remaining  unchanged,  the  value  of  *P  becomes  .000004996,  instead 
of  .001114,  which  was  found  when  v  =  1.8955.  The  value  of  \P  varies  inversely 
with  V»  and  with  V  pq,  and  both  of  these  factors  are  given  various  values  in  our 
respective  problems.  It  remains,  therefore,  to  show  the  limits,  in  each  of  these 
cases,  within  which  the  *¥  value  varies,  in  order  to  demonstrate  that  it  is  negligible : 

If   p  q  =  .25,  and  n  =    518,  *?=  .000004996 

n=      58,  V  =  .000014998 

n  =  4662,  *V  =  .000001665 

If  n  =  518,  and  p  =  .25,        p  q  =  .1875,  ^  =  .000004096 

P  =  .5.  P  Q  =  -25,  ^  5=  .0000043315 

p  =  .025,      pq  =  .024375,        ^  =  .000013872 

Ifn  =  58,     and  £  =  .025,      p  q  =  .024375,        ^  =  .000041616 

This  last  value  of  V  is  the  largest  it  can  have  in  our  use  of  the  formula,  and  it 
is  limited  to  the  cases  on  the  Whole  Card  (p  =  .025)  in  sets  of  50. 

The  effect  of  dropping  W,  then,  is  that,  for  whatever  value  we  are  determin- 
ing, the  probability  is  slightly  greater  than  the  value  of  $,  (.9999779). 


84 


THOUGHT-TRANSFEtENCE 


should  constitute  the  set  in  order  to  increase  the  probability  to  scientific 
certainty  that  the  deviation  was  not  caused  by  chance  alone. 

By   reversing   Bayes's   Theorem,148   we   can   determine   with   a   cer- 
tainty of 


1    7r 


-r  -- 


dt 


that  the  number  of  experiments  must  be 

__  2tpq 


n-       g2    ; 

and,  if  we  demand  that 

then 

p  =  0.9999779, 

and 

Y  =  3 

Substituting,  and  performing  the  operations,  we  get 


:  .25        colog    8 


1.29243 


Q   =  75 

colog    82  =    2.58486 

82  =.051 

log    p    =    9.39794  —  10 

log   q    =    9.87506  —  10 

log  18    =    1.25527 

log   n    =23.11313  —  20 

n    =  1297.6. 

If,  therefore,  the  deviation  of  +5.1%  were  maintained  in  the  guess- 
ing of  suit,  and  the  number  of  experiments  were  increased  from  518  to 
1298,  the  evidence  for  a  cause  in  addition  to  chance,  operative  for  suc- 
cess in  guessing,  would  be  satisfactory. 

In  like  manner  the  largest  positive  deviations  in  the  tables  of  results 
might  be  inspected  and  their  reliabilities  as  evidence  for  an  extra-chance 
cause  determined.  It  will  suffice,  however,  if  (a)  the  largest  deviations 
in  the  '"Card  Imaged"  part  of  Table  XVII 1B0  are  portrayed  in  tabular 
view  with  the  limit  of  chance  deviation  which  they  should  equal  or  ex- 


149  Vide,  Scripture : 
160  Supra,  p.  65. 


Am.  Jr.  Psychology,  1893-94,  6:431-2. 


GUESSING   OF  PLAYING-CARDS 


85 


ceed  in  order  to  be  trustworthy  indications  of  an  extra-chance  cause; 
and  (b)  reference  tables  and  corresponding  charts  are  provided,  which 
give  the  limits  of  chance  deviation  for  sets  varying  in  number  of  experi- 
ments, in  order  to  facilitate  an  estimate  of  the  value  of  any  deviation  in 
the  tables. 

In    both    cases    we    assume    a    scientific    standard    of    certainty    by 

putting 

P  =  O.9999779, 


when  absolute  certainty  is 


P=i 


and  we  use  again  the  formula  for  the  limit  of  chance  deviation  which 
we  have  employed  in  the  illustrations  above : 1S1 

*■  —  & 

in  which,  for  the  stated  standard  of  certainty, 

v  =  3- 


161  Although  there  are  certain  restrictions  to  the  application  of  this  formula, 
such  as  when  n  (the  number  of  experiments)  is  small,  or  when  p  is  very  small, 
its  use  is  peculiarly  applicable  to  the  type  of  data  with  which  we  are  dealing,  and 
it  is  not  unsupported  by  approved  statistical  methods  already  used  in  the  field  of 
psychical  research.  E.  g.,  in  his  "Analysis  of  Mrs.  Verrall's  Card  Experiments" 
(Proceedings  S.P.R.,  1895,  11:193-7)  Mr.  C.  P.  Sanger  used  the  following  formula 
for  the  limit  of  chance  deviation  from  the  probable  number  of  occurrences : 


K  =  3^2(1— o)wq, 
in  which 

0  =  the  probability  of  occurrences, 

m  =  the  number  of  experiments ; 
and  it   reduces  to  our  formula  for  the  limit   of  chance  deviation   from  the  prob- 
ability of  occurrence : 


>J    n 


in  which 

p  =  probability  of  occurrence, 
n  =  number  of  experiments, 
as  follows : 

AT  =  3V2(i — Q)mQ\ 
changing  notation, 

Q  =  P, 

1  —  0  =  5, 

m  =  n : 


86  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

The  following  table  displays  (a)  the  probable  per  cent  of  R  cases, 
(b)  the  largest  per  cent  of  R  cases  made  in  the  "Card  Imaged"  experi- 
ments,162 (c)  the  largest  deviations  from  probability,153  (d)  the  calcu- 
lated limit  of  chance  deviation,154  (e)  the  ratio  of  deviation  to  limit   I^J, 


rewriting, 

K  = 

=  3V2/>?«; 

and  reducing 

to 

the 

per 

cent  form, 

K 

_  2>V*pgn 

n 

n 

K 
n 

=  L 

=  3  (as. 

Its  relation  to  other  customary  formulae  may  be  seen  by  considering  Yule's  "prac- 
tical" limit  in  terms  of  the  "Standard  Error"  (An  Introduction  to  the  Theory  of 
Statistics,  3d  ed.,  pp.  266-7)  : 


Our  limit  is  definitely  greater : 


3<r  =  3     P-. 


L=  V2  X3a. 


But  of  his  limit  Yule  says :  "We  know  roughly  that  the  great  bulk  at  least  of  the 
fluctuations  of  sampling  he  within  a  range  of  three  times  the  standard-deviation; 
and  if  an  observed  difference  from  a  theoretical  result  greatly  exceeds  these  limits 
it  cannot  be  ascribed  to  a  fluctuation  of  simple  sampling:  it  may  therefore  be  sig- 
nificant" (p.  266)  ;  and  in  applying  it  to  the  results  of  49.I52  throws  of  a  die,  he 
says,  "The  deviation  observed  is  5.1  times  the  standard  error,  and,  practically 
speaking,  could  not  occur  as  a  fluctuation  of  simple  sampling.  It  may  perhaps  in- 
dicate a  slight  bias  in  the  dice"  (p.  267).  And  if  a  table  of  values  of  the  Prob- 
ability Integral  (as  in  Davenport:  Statistical  Methods,  3d  ed.,  pp.  1 19-125)  is  con- 
sulted, it  will  be  found  that  for  the  limit  of  +  3  a 

P  =  0.99865 ; 

which  permits  about  135  cases  of  chance  deviation  beyond  the  limit  in  100,000 
sets,  while  our  limit  (Z.)  with  a  probability  of 

P  =  0.9999779, 
permits  but  2  cases. 

182  From  Table  XVI,  supra,  p.  64. 
163  From  Table  XVII,  supra,  p.  65. 
««  Cf.,  Table  XLI,  infra,  p.  89. 


GUESSING  OF   PLAYING-CARDS  87 

(/)   the  ratio  of  deviation  to  the  "Standard  Error"!  — I155  and  (g)  the 

calculated   probability   of   the  given   deviation    as   the   limit   of   chance 
deviation  (P)  : 156 

TABLE  XL. 
The   Highest  Values   in  the   Results  of  Card-Guessing  Compared  with   Standard 

Theoretical   Value1:. 

Card  Color  No.  Suit 

(a)  Probable  per  cent  of  R  cases 2.5  50.0  10.0  25.0 

(b)  Largest   per   cent  of   R  cases 3.86  54.8  13. 1  30.1 

(c)  Largest   deviations    (jt) 1.36  4.8  3.1  5.1 

(d)'L  =  3N/?    2g6  9S  S7  82 

x 
(«)    ~j~     °  460  0.505  0.544  O.622 

X 

(/)     ^    1950         2.141         2.307         2.637 

(s)  P    0.9474  0.9839  0.9895  0.9959 

x 
A  glance  at  the  -j-  values  shows  that  the  largest  deviations  in  our 

sets  of  about  500  guesses  on  cards,  when  the  card  was  held  in  the  mind 
of   the  experimenter,   range   from  but  46%  to  62.2%   of  the   limit  of 

x  x  . 

166  The  ratio   —  is  derived  from  y 


\   n 

L 

a  =   — = —  , 

172X3 

X  X  1-  v.    .  X  X 

—  =  — j —  =    1    2X3T=  4-24-7- 
at.  L  L 

1/2X3 

156  The  probability  of  the  deviation  is  taken  from  Davenport's  Table  of 
Values  of  the  Probability  Integral  Corresponding  to  Values  of  x/a  (op.  cit., 
pp.  119  ff.),  which  assumes  a  "normal"  distribution  (i.  e.,  when  p  =  q),  and, 
consequently,  is  subject  to  a  slight  error  when  applied  to  the  values  in  the  table, 
other  than  under  Color,  which  tends  to  raise  the  probability;  for  example,  by 
Bernoulli's  Theorem  we  found  (supra,  p.  82)  for  the  deviation  5.1,  under  Suit, 


while  in  the  table  it  is 
a  difference  of 


P  =  0.9938, 

P  =  0.9959, 

+  0.0021. 


88  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

chance  deviation ;  and  the  P  values  also  show  that  from  4  to  53  out  of 
every  1000  chance  deviations  may  be  expected  to  exceed  our  highest  em- 
pirical deviations,  when  sets  of  500  guesses  are  considered. 

The  other  deviations,  in  the  sets  of  50,  and  in  the  totals  of  5000, 
found  in  Tables  XIV  and  XVII,157  may  be  compared  with  the  following 
tables  and  charts  158  for  their  evaluation. 

Table  XLI  and  Plate  III  portray  in  per  cent  the  limits  of  chance 
deviation,  hence,  the  minimal  significant  deviations  from  the  most  prob- 
able per  cent  of  R  cases,  for  sets  of  50  to  10,000  experiments ;  and 
Table  XLII 169  and  Plate  IV  show  the  same  facts,  with  smaller  grada- 
tions in  number  of  experiments,  for  sets  of  50  to  1000. 

Tables  XLIa  and  XLIIa  give  the  corresponding  lowest  significant 
per  cents  of  R  cases  for  sets  of  the  same  sizes. 

The  curves  are  smoothed  and  the  least  probable  and  most  probable 
per  cents  of  R  cases,  due  to  chance  alone,  may  be  read  or  estimated, 
for  a  set  of  any  number  of  experiments,  between  the  extremes  listed  in 
the  tables,  from  the  figures  on  the  left  margin.  The  number  of  experi- 
ments in  the  set  is  shown  at  the  bottom  of  the  plate.  On  Plate  IV,  for 
example,  (1)  if  one  wishes  to  learn  whether  16%  R  cases  in  a  set  of 
250  guesses  on  number  is  significant  of  thought-transference,  the  point 
coordinate  with  16  on  the  margin  and  250  at  the  bottom  may  be  located, 
and  found  to  lie  within  the  field  of  chance  deviation;  (2)  if  he  wishes 
to  know  how  large  it  should  be  to  be  significant,  the  point  in  the  limit- 
ing curve  above  250  will  be  found  to  be  coordinate  with  the  desired 
value  in  per  cent  on  the  left  margin — about  18%  ;  and  (3)  if  he  wishes 
to  know  how  many  experiments  to  perform  in  order  that  16%  R  cases 
may  be  decisive,  the  16%  ordinate  may  be  followed  to  its  point  of  inter- 
section with  the  limiting  curve,  and  at  the  bottom  of  the  plate  the  re- 
quired number  of  experiments  may  be  read  off  or  estimated — about  480. 
The  base-line  for  each  characteristic  of  the  card  shows  the  probability 


167  Supra,  pp.  57-63,  65. 

158  Several  purposes  besides  our  immediate  interest  are  served  by  these 
tables  and  charts :  They  may  be  found  of  value  by  others  who  desire  to  engage 
in  further  investigation  of  thought-transference;  and  they  illustrate  very  clearly 
the  adequacy  of  scientific  procedure  to  search  out  and  identify  even  a  slight  cause 
in  addition  to  chance  by  carrying  out  the  experiments  to  a  sufficiently  great  num- 
ber. The  layman  will  not  feel  so  hopeless  in  the  face  of  slight  deviations,  when 
he  has  reason  to  believe  them  significant,  if  he  can  see  from  this  illustration  that 
the  limit  of  chance  deviation  is  lowered  directly  with  the  square  root  of  the 
number  of  experiments  in  carrying  further  the  investigation. 

168  Infra,  p.  90. 


GUESSING  OF   PLAYING-CARDS 


89 


of  a  single  guess  upon  that  characteristic  (e.  g.,  10%  for  Number,  25% 
for  Suit)  ;  which  is  also  the  most  probable  per  cent  for  any  number  of 
guesses. 

It  is  doubtless  evident  that  the  relation  of  any  deviation  in  Tables 
XIV  180  and  XVII  to  its  chance-limit  may  be  found  by  locating  the  size 
of  the  set  at  the  bottom  of  the  plate,  counting  upward  from  the  proper 
base-line,  and  noting  the  position  of  the  point  found  with  reference  to 
the  accompanying  limiting  curve.  If  it  lies  above  the  limiting  curve  it 
is  significant. 


TABLE  XLI. 
Minimal    Significant   Deviations. 

(In  Per  Cent)         L  =  ±y-v/— 
\    » 

Number  of  . 

experiments  Card  Color  Number  Suit 

inset.            Probable  %..  2.50  50.0  10.0  25.0 

50* 9-37  30.o  18.0  26.0 

100 6.63  21.2  12.7  18.4 

Soof 2.96  9.5  57  8-2 

1000 2.09  67  4.0  5-8 

i6oot 1.66  5-3  3-2  4-4 

2000 1.48  47  2.8  41 

3000 t.21  3-9  2.3  3-3 

5000§ 0.94  3-0  1.8  2.6 

10000 0.66  2.1  1.3  1.8 

♦Deviations  comparable  with  those  in  Table  XIV  after  the  latter  are  multi- 
plied by  2 ;    or  the  former  are  divided  by  2   (As, 

4.96  15.0  9.0  13.0). 

fComparable  with  Table  XVII,  without  reduction. 
$Comparable  with  Table  XXV. 
§Comparable  with  "Total"  in  Table  XVII. 

160  The  deviations  taken  from  Table  XIV  must  be  reduced  to  per  cent,  how- 
ever, before  they  may  be  compared  with  the  values  in  these  tables  and  plates ;  this 
may  be  done  by  multiplying  them  by  2. 


90 


THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 


TABLE  XLIa. 

Minimal  Per  Cent  of  R  Cases  to  be  Significant. 
Number  of 

experiments  Card  Color          Number 

inset.            Most  Probable  Per  Cent..  2.50  50.0  10.0 

So 11.87  80.0  28.0 

100 9.13  71.2  22.7 

500 546  59-5  157 

1000 4-59  56.7  14-0 

1600 416  55-3  13-2 

2000 398  54-7  I2-8 

3000 371  53  9  12.3 

5000 3-44  53-0  "-8 

10000 316  52.1  11.3 

TABLE  XLII. 

Minimal  Significant  Deviations  in  Per  Cent,  for  Sets  of  50-1000. 

50 9-37  300  18.0 

100 6.63  21.2  12.7 

150 5-52  17-3  10.4 

200 4-68  150                 9.0 

300 3-^3  12.2                 7.4 

400 3-3i  10.6                 6.4 

500 2.96  9.5                 5.7 

600 2.71  8.7                 5-2 

700 2.50  8.0                 4.8 

800 2.34  75                 4-5 

900 2.21  7.1                 4.2 

1000 2.09  6.7                 4.0 


Suit 
25.0 
5i-0 
43-4 
33-2 
30.8 
29.4 
29.1 
28.3 
27.6 
26.8 


26.0 

18.4 

150 

130 

10.6 

9.2 

8.2 

7-5 

7-i 

6.5 

6.1 

5-8 


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92  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

TABLE  XLIIa. 

Minimal  Per  Cent  of  R  Cases  to  be  Significant.     In  Sets  of  50-1000. 

Numl?er  °f                                                             Card             Color           Number  Suit 
experiments 

inset.            Most  Probable  Per  Cent..         2.50               50  0               10.0  25.0 

50 11.87               80.0               28.0  51.0 

100 9.13               71.2               22.7  43.4 

150 8.02               67.3               20.4  40.0 

200 7.18               65.0               19.0  38.0 

300 6.33               62.2               174  35-6 

400 5.81               60.6               16.4  34.2 

500 546               59-5                157  33-2 

600 5-21               58.7               15-2  32.5 

700 500               58.0               148  321 

800 4-84               57-5                145  3i-5 

900 4-71               57-1                142  31. 1 

1000 4-59               567                140  30.8 

By  reference  to  the  tables  above  the  reader  may  verify  the  follow- 
ing survey  of  the  highest  deviations  to  be  found  in  our  data. 

The  largest  deviations  in  Table  XIV  (shown  in  Table  XVIII )161 
compared  with  the  largest  chance  deviations  as  calculated  from  the 
formula  and  tabulated  for  sets  of  50  in  Table  XLI : 

Card  Not  Imaged.  Card  Imaged 

Card      Color      No.      Suit          Card     Color        No.  Suit 
Probable  Number....      1.25        25            5        12.5 

Table   XIV +5          +13          +5        +8              +5            +7           +6  +8 

Vipq 
— +4.69      +14-9        +9-0    +130 

The  largest  deviations  in  Table  XVII 162  in  comparison  with  calcu- 
lated chance  deviation,  per  set  of  500: 


Card  Not  Imaged.  Card  Imaged. 

Card       Color       No.      Suit  Card      Color         No.        Suit 

Probable  Per  Cent...      2  50         50  10        25 

Table  XVII. +2.23       +4-8        +27     +3-8  +1.36       +4-8         +3.1        +5-1 

L  =  Y  A*ll +2.96       +9.5        +57     +8.2 

The  deviations  of  the  total  in  Table  XVII 182  in  comparison  with 
calculated  chance  deviation,  per  set  of  5000: 

i«!  Supra,  p.  66. 
"2  Supra,  p.  65. 


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94  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

Card  Not  Imaged.  Card  Imaged. 

Card      Color      No.      Suit  Card     Color       No.       Suit 
Probable  Per  Cent. ...     2.50        50           10        25 

Table    XVII +0.40       +1.2          0.0     +0.8  +0.48       -0.3         +0.5        +1.2 

L  =  V\— +0.94       +3-0        +1.8     +2.6 

Y   n 

It  is  pretty  evident  that,  taking  our  data  in  the  mass  and  selecting 
the  largest  deviations,  although  the  calculated  limit  of  chance  deviation 
is  sometimes  approached,  it  is  never  (with  the  exception  of  the  +5  under 
Card  in  Table  XIV)  equaled;  and  the  larger  the  set  considered,  the 
more  does  it  exceed  the  deviations  in  the  data.  This  means,  then,  that, 
whether  the  largest  deviations  in  the  single  sets,  or  the  deviations  in  the 
totals  of  10  sets  or  of  100  sets,  are  considered,  no  cause  besides  chance 
is  revealed  in  sufficient  magnitude  to  meet  the  usual  statistical  require- 
ments for  identification. 

That  a  real  cause  may  be  present  and  yet  be  veiled  in  the  chance 
variation  has  already  been  considered  in  the  discussion  of  the  use  of 
analyses  for  magnifying  it  sufficiently  for  detection;  but  this  con- 
sideration is  worthy  another  glance  here  since  in  the  last  five  sets  (/to 
V)  in  Table  XIV,  C,163  we  find,  on  the  "Card  Imaged"  side  of  the  table, 
a  number  of  deviations  from  the  probable  number  for  a  set  of  50,  which 
we  know  164  are  the  result  in  part  of  other  causes  besides  chance,  and 
which  fall  within  the  limits  of  chance  deviation  as  calculated  from  our 
formula;  under  "Color"  +13,  +12,  and  +7  fall  within  ±14.9,  and  under 
"Suit"  +11  and  +3  fall  within  ±13.  One  cannot  be  in  doubt  about  the 
existence  of  an  extra-chance  cause  in  the  whole  group,  because  in  the 
averages  the  deviations  of  the  per  cent  of  R  cases  from  the  probable 
per  cent  exceed  in  considerable  amount  the  calculated  limit  of  chance 

Card  Not  Imaged.  Card  Imaged. 

Card    Color     No.  Suit  Total  Card    Color      No.     Suit  Total 

Probable  % 2.50        50         10         25 

Sets    I-V 40.36      -1.8      +3.0  +1.1     245  +41.40    +29.2    +49.6    +29.5    255 

L  =  vA/^  ....  +4.19    +13-4      +8.0    +11.6 
\   n 

And   the  deviations  are   magnified  by  analysis : — Distribution   over 

the  die-spots : 

Die-Spot  Odd 

W  Num- 

Card     Color     No.      Suit  ber 

+60.90    +47.1    +77.2    +44.4  -43.0     101 

+3-30      -2.3     +2.8      -2.9  +3.8      86 

+60.70    +42.7   +68.0    +48.5  -39.1      68 

184  Vide,  infra,  pp.  121  ff. 


Die-Spot 

iven 

Die- 

R  Cases 

W  Num- 

Die- 

Spot 

Card  Color    No.     Suit 

ber 

Spot 

2 

+1.45    -7-9    +5-8    +4-0 

+37    76 

1 

4 

+1.40    +7.1     +3.0    +1.0 

-7-4    77 

3 

6 

-0.41     -4.4    +0.9    -O.I 

+1.7    92 

5 

"3  Supra,  p.  63. 

GUESSING  OF  PLAYING-CARDS  95 

The  hope  of  bringing  to  light  some  influence  working  for  R  cases, 
by  the  use  of  calculated  limits  of  chance  deviation,  then,  lies  in  extend- 
ing the  experiments  to  large  numbers.  If  individual  deviations  which 
result  in  part  from  causes  besides  chance  lie  in  a  set  of  experiments  too 
small  in  number  to  raise  them  above  the  calculated  limit  of  chance  varia- 
tion, their  significance  must  be  determined  by  some  other  method.  If 
they  escape  the  method  of  analysis,  illustrated  some  pages  above,  there 
remain  the  method  of  distribution,  and  the  method  of  comparing  the 
single  measures  of  the  regular  (Card  Imaged)  experiments  with  those 
of  the  control  (Card  Not  Imaged)  experiments. 

Comparison  of  the  Empirical  with  their  Theoretical  Distributions. 

According  to  the  theory  of  probability,  when  the  events  the  dis- 
tribution of  which  is  sought  are  "discontinuous,"  16°  such  as  ours,  the 
frequencies  of  the  successive  variates  (numbers  of  R  cases  in  an  aggre- 
gate of  sets)  are  given  by  the  successive  terms  of  the  expansion  of  the 

binomial  theorem,166  ...      ,    t._ 

N(q  +  p)n 

when 

N  =  the  number  of  sets  of  experiments 
it  =  the  number  of  experiments  in  a  set 
p  =  the  probability  of  a  single  occurrence 
q=i—  p. 

As,  in  the  case  of  64  guesses  on  color,  when  the  R  guesses  are 
counted  in  each  of  16  sets  of  4  experiments : 

i6(q  +  py  = 

i6(q*  +  4q*P  +  WP*  +MP3  +  Pi); 

but  in  this  case  the  probability  of  a  single  R  guess  is  J^,  hence 

p  =  q=y2, 


165  That  is,  are  exact  quantities,  like  the  number  of  Right  guesses  on  Color 
in  a  set  of  50,  as  distinguished  from  "Continuous"  events,  which  are  approximated 
quantities,  like  the  height  of  a  man  read  from  a  scale. 

168  Yule  (op.  cit.,  p.  293)  gives  the  following  rule:  "The  frequencies  o,  I,  2, 
.  .  .  successes  in  N  trials  of  n  events  are  given  by  the  successive  terms  in  the 
binomial  expansion  of  N(q  +  />)",  viz: 


N 


j?«  +  «o»^p+  *£=!>  ,-v  +  fc^p>  ,-*>■+ ....[». 


96  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

and  the  equation  becomes 

=  1  +  4  +  6  +  4+  i. 

Consequently  we  have : 

Frequency  of  R  guesses  =  i     4    6    4     1 

Variates  (or  number  of  R  guesses  in  the  set)  =  0     /     2     3     4 

Thus,  one  set  would  have  no  R  guesses,  four  sets  would  have  1  R 
guess,  6  sets  2  R  guesses,  four  sets  3  R  guesses,  and  one  set  4  R  guesses. 
This  is  the  theoretical  distribution,187  and  from  it  one  could  draw  the 
curve  of  distribution. 

If  some  cause  in  addition  to  chance  operated  for  R  guesses,  the  em- 
pirical distribution  would  be  expected  to  depart,  in  extent  correspond- 
ing to  the  efficiency  of  the  cause,  from  the  theoretical  distribution,  and 
it  might  be  detected  by  a  comparison  of  the  distributions ;  the  empirical 
curve  would  be  shifted  in  the  direction  of  the  higher  variates. 

It  may  be  noted  that  in  the  survey  of  our  largest  positive  deviations 
in  relation  to  the  limit  of  chance  deviations,  which  we  have  just  con- 
cluded, we  compared  only  the  single  values  at  the  upper  limit  of  the  em- 
pirical and  the  theoretical  distributions.  We  shall  later  compare  the 
mean  values.  Now  we  are  engaged  in  comparing  all  of  the  values  in 
the  empirical  distributions  with  their  respective  theoretically  expected 
magnitudes ;  and  not  each  value  singly,  but  the  proportion  in  which  all 
of  the  values  in  any  aggregate  of  sets  are  distributed. 

The  following  tables  and  curves  offer  the  data  for  visual  inspection : 
the  degree  to  which  an  empirical  distribution  is  shifted  above  or  below 
the  theoretical  distribution  can  be  determined  to  be  significant  only  by 
the  application  of  formulae  (e.  g.,  Pearson's  formulae  for  "Closeness  of 


J«7  When  n  is  large  it  is  found  convenient  to  use  the  well-known  formula 
given  by  H.  Laurent  (Calcul  des  Probabilites)  in  computing  the  theoretical  distri- 
bution :  It  is  a  formula  for  the  probability  of  k  occurrences,  in  a  set  of  n  inde- 
pendent trials,  of  an  event  of  which  the  probability  of  a  single  occurrence  in  one 

trial  is  equal  to  X:  n!  k  /I_1\"— * 

in  which  n!  is  "n  factorial": 

n.'  =  w(«-i)  (n-2)   .  .  .  3-2- 1 

This  formula  was  used,  unless  otherwise  stated,  for  computing  each  of  the 
theoretical  distributions  in  the  following  tables.  For  factorials  of  large  numbers 
we  used  the  approximate  exponential  formula  given  by  Laurent  (p.  13)  : 

n!  =  nnc'nV27tn~ 


GUESSING  OF  PLAYING-CARDS  97 

Fit,"  and  its  probability),  and  this  determination  will  be  deferred188 
until  formulae  based  upon  empirical  deviations  are  applied  to  single 
measures,  in  the  next  section. 

In  the  following  tables  x  is  the  number  of  R  judgments  in  a  set  of 
50;  C  stands  for  Control  experiments,  "Card  Not  Imaged";  R,  for 
Regular  experiments,  "Card  Imaged" ;  P,  for  the  theoretically  Probable 
number.  The  Residuals  are  the  deviations  from  P.  Under  C,  R,  and 
P,  are  entered  the  number  of  sets.  The  whole  number  of  sets  upon 
which  all  the  tables  are  based  is  ioo. 

Table  XLIII  gives  the  distribution  of  R  judgments  on  the  whole 
"Card" ;  Table  XLIV,  on  "Color" ;  Table  XLV,  on  "Number" ;  Table 
XLVI,  on  "Suit";  and  Table  XLVII,  guesses  wholly  wrong;  and 
the  accompanying  Plates  V-IX  illustrate  the  facts  in  the  "Exactly  x" 
column. 

TABLE  XLIII. 

Distribution  of  R  Cases  on  the  "Card"  in  100  sets  of  50. 
Probability  1:40  (2.5%).     Normal  Reagents. 


X 

Occu 

rrence 

of  Number! 

Residuals 

Difference  R-C 

C       R 

P 

C 

R 

P 

C 

R 

C 

R 

Below 

Exactly 

Below 

X 

Exactly 

X 

Below  x 

Exactly  x 

x 

x 

0 

0        0 

0 

24 

20 

28 

0 

0 

-4 

-8 

0 

-4 

I 

24      20 

28 

32 

36 

36 

-4 

-8 

-4 

0 

-4 

+4 

2 

56      56 

64 

30 

27 

23 

-8 

-8 

+7 

+4 

0 

-3 

3 

86      83 

87 

8 

8 

9 

-1 

-4 

-1 

-1 

-3 

0 

4 

94      9i 

96 

4 

7 

3 

-2 

-s 

+1 

+4 

-3 

+3 

5 

98      98 

99 

1 

1 

1 

-1 

-1 

0 

0 

0 

0 

6 

99      99 

IOO 

1 

1 

0 

-1 

-1 

+1 

+1 

0 

0 

7 

IOO      IOO 

IOO 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

From  Table  XLIII  we  note  that  less  than  one  R  case  on  the  whole 
card  occurred  in  24%  of  the  "Control"  (Card  Not  Imaged)  sets,  20% 
of  the  "Regular"  (Card  Imaged)  sets,  while  28%  is  recorded  as  the 
theoretical  expectation,  giving  residuals  of  -4  and  -8  respectively ;  and 
that  Exactly  one  R  case  occurred  in  32%  of  the  "Control"  sets  and  36% 
of  the  "Regular"  sets,  with  a  probability  of  36%,  giving  residuals  of  -4 
and  o  respectively ;   the  Difference  R-C  was  -4  and  +4  respectively. 

The  "Residuals  below  x"  show  by  their  consistent  negative  signs 
that  both  empirical  curves  are  somewhat  shifted  toward  the  higher  vari- 


168  Vide,  infra,  p.  108. 


98 


THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 


ates,  and  the  corresponding  R-C  differences  "Below  x"  show  that  some 
slight  advantage  is  held  by  the  regular  distribution.  The  "Residuals 
Exactly  x"  show  that  the  advantage  was  made  on  the  variates  2  and  4, 
and  the  "Difference  R-C  Exactly  x"  shows  the  Regular  distribution  to 
hold  the  advantage  on  variate  4.  The  accompanying  curves  (Plate  V) 
give  a  pictorial  view  of  the  relations  existing  between  the  three  distribu- 
tions. Whether  the  advantage  of  the  Regular  distribution  is  significant 
will  be  shown  in  the  next  section. 

TABLE  XLIV. 

Distribution  of  R  Cases  on  "Color"  in  100  sets  of  50. 
Probability  1:2  (50%).     Normal  Reagents. 


X 

Occurrence 

of  Numbers 

Residuals 

Difference  R-C 

Below 

X 

Exactly 

X 

Bel 

DW  X 

Exactly  x 

Below  Exactly 

C 

R 

p* 

C 

R 

p 

C 

i? 

C 

R 

X 

X 

16 

0 

0 

0 

1 

0 

0 

0 

0 

+1 

0 

0 

-1 

'7 

1 

0 

1 

0 

1 

I 

0 

-1 

-1 

0 

-1 

+1 

18 

1 

1 

2 

3 

4 

2 

-1 

-1 

+1 

+2 

0 

+  1 

19 

4 

S 

3 

2 

4 

3 

+1 

+2 

-1 

+1 

+1 

+2 

20 

6 

9 

6 

9 

5 

4 

0 

+3 

+5 

+1 

+3 

-4 

21 

IS 

14 

10 

1 

8 

6 

+5 

+4 

-5 

-h2 

-1 

+7 

22 

16 

22 

16 

4 

2 

8 

0 

+€ 

-4 

-6 

+6 

-2 

23 

20 

24 

24 

8 

8 

10 

-4 

0 

-2 

-2 

+4 

0 

24 

28 

32 

34 

9 

8 

11 

-6 

-2 

-2 

-3 

+4 

-1 

25 

37 

40 

44 

13 

12 

11 

-7 

-4 

+2 

+1 

+3 

-1 

26 

50 

52 

56 

11 

19 

11 

-6 

-4 

0 

+8 

+2 

+8 

27 

61 

71 

66 

10 

8 

10 

-s 

+5 

0 

-2 

+10 

-2 

28 

/I 

79 

76 

7 

4 

8 

-5 

+3 

-1 

-4 

+8 

-3 

29 

78 

83 

84 

6 

II 

6 

-6 

-1 

0 

+5 

+5 

+5 

30 

84 

94 

90 

6 

2 

4 

-6 

+4 

+2 

-2 

+10 

-4 

31 

90 

96 

94 

3 

I 

3 

-4 

+2 

0 

-2 

-H5 

-2 

32 

93 

97 

97 

3 

3 

2 

-4 

0 

+1 

+1 

+4 

0 

33 

96 

100 

98 

1 

0 

1 

-2 

+2 

0 

-1 

+4 

-1 

34 

97 

100 

99 

0 

0 

0 

-2 

+  1 

0 

0 

+3 

0 

35 

97 

100 

100 

1 

0 

0 

-3 

0 

+1 

0 

+3 

-1 

36 

98 

100 

100 

1 

0 

0 

-2 

0 

+1 

0 

+2 

-1 

37 

99 

100 

100 

0 

0 

0 

-1 

0 

0 

0 

+1 

0 

38 

99 

100 

100 

1 

0 

0 

-1 

0 

+1 

0 

+1 

-1 

39 

100 

100 

100 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

*The  apparent  discrepancies  in  this  column  are  accountable  for  by  the  sum- 
mation of  decimals  which  were  negligible  in  the  P  column  under  "Exactly  x." 
The  nearest  integral  number  was  chosen  in  both  columns. 


GUESSING  OF  PLAYING-CARDS 


99 


so 


20 


10 


0  12  3  4  5  6 

Plate  V. —  R  Guesses  on  the  "Card." 

Each  curve  includes  ioo  sets,  of  50.     Probable  number,  1.25. 

(Solid  line,  "Card  Not  Imaged";    broken  line,  "Card  Imaged";    light 

line,   Probability.) 


15 


10 


20  25  30  35  40 

Plate  VI. —  R  Guesses  on  the  "Color." 

100  sets,  of  50,  in  each  curve.     Probable  number,  25. 

(Solid  line,  "Card  Not  Imaged";    broken  line,  "Card  Imaged";    light 

line,   Probability.) 


100  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

From  Table  XLIV  we  note  that  there  were  less  than  24  (.r)  R  cases 
on  "Color"  in  28%  of  the  "Card  Not  Imaged"  sets  (C),  32%  of  the 
"Card  Imaged"  sets  (R),  and  34%  in  the  chance  distribution  (F),  giv- 
ing residuals  of  -6  and  -2 ;  and  that  there  were  Exactly  24  R  cases  in 
9%  of  the  "Card  Not  Imaged"  sets,  and  in  8%  of  the  "Card  Imaged" 
sets,  while  it  is  expected  in  11%  of  sets  of  chance  events,  giving  resid- 
uals of  -2  and  -3  respectively ;  that  the  Difference  R-C  for  "Below  x" 
is  +4  and  for  "Exactly  x"  is  -I.  The  table  shows  both  sets  of  experi- 
ments to  approximate  fairly  closely  the  theoretical  values.  The  facts  in 
the  "Exactly  x"  column  are  more  clearly  shown  in  the  curves  of  Plate 
VI.  That  the  larger  residuals  are  not  so  distributed  as  to  be  significant 
may  be  better  appreciated  if  the  data  of  the  table  under  "Occurrence  of 
numbers,  Exactly  x"  are  grouped  in  fives  about  the  central  variate  (25), 
and  the  broader  relations  between  R  and  C  and  P  are  displayed : 

x  C  R  F 

Below   18 I  I  I 

18-22    19  23  23 

23-27    5i  55  53 

28-32    25  21  23 

33-37    3  o  1 

Above    37 1  0  o 

TABLE  XLV. 

Distribution  of  R  Cases  on  "Number"  in  100  sets  of  50. 

Probability  1:10   (10%).     Normal  Reagents. 

Occurrence  of  Numbers  Residuals              Difference  R-C 

Below  x                  Exactly  x  Below  x      Exactly  x     Below  Exactly 

x        C        R         P*       C         R         P  C        R        C          R           x  x 

0000011  00-10           o  +1 

/         o          1          1          7          1          3  -1          o        +4        -2          +1  -6 

2        7          2          4          6          6          9  +3-2-3-3-5             o 

J       13          8        12        12        12        15  +1        -4        -3        -3          -s             0 

4  25        20        27        15        18        19  -2        -7        -4        -1          -5  +3 

5  40        38        46        23        19        20  -6-8        +3        -1          -2  -4 

6  63        57        65         13        20        16  -2        -8-3+4          -6  +7 

7  76        77        82          9          9        10  -6        -5        -i        -1          +1              o 

8  85        86        91         10          6          5  -6        -5        +5        +1          +1  -4 

9  95  92  96  3  2  2  -1  -4  +1  o  -3  -1 
10  98  94  99  2  3  1  -1  -5  +1  +2  -4  +1 
//  100  97  100  o  3  0  0-30  +3  -3  +3 
12     100      100      100         000  00000            o 

*  For  apparent  discrepancies  in  this  column  see  foot-note,  Table  XLIV,  p.  98 


GUESSING   OF  PLAYING-CARDS 


101 


In  Table  XLV  like  facts  are  displayed  with  respect  to  the  R  cases 
on  "Number"  of  spots.  Although  the  residuals  under  "Below  x"  dis- 
close a  slight  shifting  of  R  above  P,  especially  on  variates  6,  w,  and  n 
(see  also  curves  in  Plate  VII),  this  advantage  is  to  some  extent  shared 
with  C,  and  the  difference  R-C  leaves  but  little  in  R's  favor.  Under 
"Exactly  x"  the  advantages  of  R  are  not  great,  as  may  be  better  seen 
if  the  data  are  grouped: 


so 


is 


10 


0  123466789      10      11      12 

Plate  VII.—  R  Guesses  on  the  "Number." 
ioo  sets,  of  SO,  in  eacli  curve.     Probable  number,  5. 
(Solid  line,  "Card  Not  Imaged";    broken  line,  "Card  Imaged" 
line,   Probability.) 


light 


102 


THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 


TABLE  XLVI. 

Distribution  of  R  Cases  on  "Suit"  in  ioo  sets  of  SO. 
Probability  1:4  (25%).    Normal  Reagents. 


Occurrence  of  Numbers 
Below  x  Exactly  x 


Residuals  Difference  R-C 

Below  x     Exactly  x     Below  Exactly 


X 

c 

R 

P* 

C 

R 

P 

C 

R 

C 

R 

X 

X 

6 

0 

0 

1 

1 

1 

I 

-1 

-1 

0 

0 

0 

0 

7 

1 

1 

2 

2 

3 

2 

-1 

-1 

0 

+1 

0 

+1 

8 

3 

4 

4 

2 

1 

4 

-1 

0 

-2 

-3 

+1 

-1 

9 

5 

5 

8 

10 

5 

7 

-3 

-3 

+3 

-2 

0 

-5 

10 

15 

10 

15 

7 

7 

9 

0 

-5 

-2 

-2 

-5 

0 

11 

22 

17 

24 

16 

10 

11 

-2 

-7 

+5 

-1 

-5 

-6 

12 

38 

27 

35 

9 

21 

13 

+3 

-8 

-4 

+8 

-11 

+  12 

13 

47 

48 

48 

14 

10 

13 

-1 

0 

+  1 

-3 

+1 

-4 

14 

61 

58 

61 

11 

10 

12 

0 

-3 

-1 

-2 

-5 

-I 

'5 

72 

68 

72 

9 

14 

9 

0 

-4 

0 

+3 

-4 

+5 

It 

81 

82 

82 

4 

7 

7 

-1 

0 

-3 

0 

+1 

+3 

17 

85 

89 

89 

9 

4 

5 

-4 

0 

+4 

-1 

+4 

-5 

18 

94 

93 

93 

0 

2 

3 

+1 

0 

-3 

-1 

-1 

+2 

19 

94 

95 

97 

3 

2 

2 

-3 

-2 

+1 

0 

+1 

-I 

20 

97 

97 

98 

1 

2 

1 

-1 

-1 

0 

+1 

0 

+  1 

21 

98 

99 

99 

2 

I 

0 

-1 

0 

+2 

+1 

+1 

-I 

22 

100 

100 

100 

0 

0 

0 

» 
ti 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

c 

15 


Plate  VIII. —  R  Guesses  on  the  "Suit." 
100  Sets,  of  50,  in  each  curve.     Probable  number  12.5. 
(Solid  line,  "Card  Not  Imaged";    broken  line,  "Card  Imaged" 
line,  Probability.) 


light 


*  See  foot-note  Table  XLIV,  p.  98. 


GUESSING  OF  PLAYING-CARDS  103 

Table  XLVI  presents  the  data  for  R  cases  on  "Suit,"  and  shows 
amid  great  irregularity,  best  appreciated  from  the  curves  on  Plate  VIII, 
a  very  close  approximation  of  R  to  P  and  C.  A  grouping  of  the  "Ex- 
actly x"  data  gives  the  following  view : 

x  C  R  P 

Below  7 I  I  I 

y-io     21  l6  22 

11-14    50         Si  49 

15-18    22         27         24 

Above    18 6  5  3 

TABLE  XLVII. 

Distribution  of  W  Cases  in  100  sets  of  50. 
Probability  1:2.22  (45%).     Normal  Reagents. 


Occurrence  of  Numbers 

Residuals 

Difference 

R-C 

Below 

X 

Exactly 

X 

Bel 

ow  * 

Exac 

:tly  x 

Below  Exactly 

X 

C 

R 

P 

C 

R 

P 

c 

ft 

c 

R 

X 

X 

II 

0 

0 

0 

1 

0 

0 

0 

0 

+1 

0 

0 

-1 

12 

1 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

+1 

0 

0 

0 

-1 

0 

IS 

1 

0 

0 

2 

0 

0 

+1 

0 

+2 

0 

-1 

-2 

14 

3 

0 

0 

0 

0 

1 

+3 

0 

-1 

-1 

-3 

0 

15 

3 

0 

1 

0 

1 

1 

+2 

-1 

-1 

0 

-3 

+1 

lb 

3 

1 

2 

4 

2 

2 

+1 

-1 

-h2 

0 

-2 

-2 

17 

7 

3 

4 

8 

2 

4 

+3 

-1 

+4 

-2 

-4 

-6 

18 

IS 

5 

8 

7 

5 

5 

+7 

-3 

+2 

0 

-10 

-2 

19 

22 

10 

13 

7 

8 

7 

+9 

-3 

0 

+i 

-12 

+1 

20 

29 

18 

20 

8 

12 

9 

+9 

-2 

-1 

+3 

-11 

+4 

21 

37 

30 

29 

8 

11 

10 

+8 

+1 

-2 

+1 

-7 

+3 

22 

45 

41 

39 

11 

12 

n 

+6 

+2 

0 

+1 

-4 

4-1 

23 

S6 

53 

5o 

7 

11 

11 

+6 

+3 

-4 

0 

-3 

+4 

24 

63 

64 

61 

7 

8 

10 

+2 

+3 

-3 

-2 

+1 

+1 

25 

70 

72 

71 

8 

6 

9 

-1 

+1 

-1 

-3 

+2 

-2 

2b 

78 

78 

80 

5 

8 

7 

-2 

-2 

-2 

+1 

0 

+3 

27 

83 

86 

87 

4 

1 

5 

-4 

-1 

-1 

-4 

+3 

-3 

28 

87 

87 

92 

6 

8 

4 

-5 

-5 

+2 

+4 

0 

-H2 

29 

93 

95 

95 

2 

2 

2 

-2 

0 

0 

0 

+2 

0 

30 

95 

97 

97 

3 

3 

1 

-2 

0 

+2 

+2 

+2 

0 

31 

98 

100 

98 

1 

0 

1 

0 

+2 

0 

-1 

+2 

-I 

32 

99 

100 

99 

1 

0 

0 

0 

+1 

+1 

0 

+1 

-I 

33 

100 

100 

100 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

104 


THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 


Table  XLVII  and  Plate  IX  present  the  data  for  guesses  Wholly 
Wrong.  Again,  amid  great  irregularity  there  is  a  fairly  close  approxi- 
mation of  R  to  P  and  C.  A  grouping  of  data  under  "Exactly  x"  gives 
the  following  more  regular  distributions : 

x  C  R  P 

Below    ij i  o  o 

13-16    6  3  4 

'7-20    30  27  25 

21-24    33  42  42 

25-28    23  23  25 

29-32    7  5  4 

Above    32 o  o  o 

N. 

10 

v  \  v      -■- » 

/  /f  vr 

u 

t 

A. 

10  15  20  25  30  35 

Plate  IX. —  Guesses  Wholly  Wrong. 
100  Sets,  of  50,  in  each  curve.  Probable  number,  22.5. 
(Solid  line,  "Card  Not  Imaged";  broken  line,  "Card  Imaged";  higher  light  line, 
the  theoretical  curve  (found  by  the  expansion  of  (<7+/>)")  ".  the  lower  light  line,  a 
proximate  symmetrical  curve  found  by  x/a  calculated  from  the  two  empirical 
curves  and  evaluated  in  a  table  of  values  of  the  normal  probability  integral. 
{Vide,  Davenport:     Statistical  Methods,  3d  ed.,  pp.  119  ff.). 

This  cursory  comparison  of  the  empirical  with  the  theoretical  dis- 
tributions reveals  (a)  the  irregularity  of  empirical  distributions  which 
may  be  expected  when  they  consist  of  but  100  sets,  and  have  a  fairly 
large  number  of  variates  over  which  to  be  distributed;  and  (b)  some 
slight  advantage,  which  the  irregularity  makes  difficult  to  see,  but  which 
the  "Residuals  Below  x"  definitely  indicate,  for  the  Regular  distribu- 
tions of  R  cases  on  Card,  Color,  Number  and  Suit. 

Whether  the  advantage  is  significant  can  scarcely  be  estimated  by 
visual  inspection,  especially  since  it  is  shared  by  the  Control  distribu- 
tions almost  fully  in  the  R  cases  on  the  Card,  and  Suit,  somewhat  on 


GUESSING  OF  PLAYING-CARDS  105 

Number,  and  is  exceeded  on  Color.  It  evidently  needs  statistical  test- 
ing,109 which  belongs  in  the  following  section  where  customary  formulae 
are  applied  to  the  empirical  deviations  from  central  measures,  for  the 
purpose  of  determining  the  reliability  and  the  significance  of  the  central 
and  other  single  measures  of  the  R  cases  reported  in  our  tables. 

Application  of  Usual  Statistical  Formulae  to  Central  and  Other  Single 

Measures. 

The  single  measures  of  the  sets,  with  their  measures  of  precision 
and  their  relation  to  the  limits  of  chance  as  determined  both  from  em- 
pirical data  and  from  theoretical  formulae,  may  now  be  inspected. 

In  Table  XLVIII  we  note  in  line  (A)  the  arithmetical  means 
found  from  the  ioo  sets  of  ioo  experiments  each,  after  both  the  "Card 
Not  Imaged"  and  the  "Card  Imaged"  parts  had  been  reduced  to  sets  of 
50,  which  agrees  with  the  total  in  Table  XVo;170  (B)  gives  the  prob- 
able number,  expected  by  chance;  (C)  shows  the  deviation  of  the 
mean  from  the  probable  number;  and  (D)  gives  it  in  per  cent,  which 
is  comparable  with  other  tables  and  with  lines  (/),  (L),  (M),  (N)  and 
(P)  below;  (E)  gives  the  customary  Probable  Error  of  the  mean, 
(PEM)*  which  indicates  the  distance  from  the  mean  beyond  which  the 
odds  are  even  that  the  mean  may  fall;  (F)  gives  the  deviation  from  the 
mean  equal  to  3  X  PEM  beyond  which  the  chance  is  1 :2i  that  the  mean 
may  fall;  and  (G)  gives  the  deviation  which  is  usually  viewed  as  "sig- 
nificant," 5  X  PEU  beyond  which  the  odds  are  only  1 :  1310  that  the 
mean  will  fall.171  (£),  (F)  and  (G)  are  comparable  with  (C).  (H) 
gives  the  Standard  Deviation  of  the  Distribution,  a  t  which  is  regarded 
as  the  best  measure  of  variability,172  and  marks  a  limit  beyond  which 
32%  of  all  the  cases  fall;  (I)  gives  in  per  cent  the  limit  of  30,  which 
is  a  rough  measure  of  the  amount  of  dispersion  that  may  be  expected 
for  a  normal  distribution,  about  three  cases  in  1000  falling  beyond  it; 173 
(/)  gives  Dev./a  from  which  (K)  is  found  in  a  table  of  values  giving 
the  fraction  of  the  area  of  the  surface  of  frequency  between  the  limits 


■PEM  =  ±0.6745^ 


t«"      -f* 


ISf-6 
■J      n 

169  Vide,  infra,  p.  108. 

170  Appendix  A. 

171  Davenport,  op.  cit.,  p.   14. 

172  Vide,  Davenport,  op.  cit.,  p.  16 ;    also,  Yule,  op.  cit.,  p.  144. 

173  Vide,  Yule,  op.  cit.,  p.  266. 


106 


THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 


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GUESSING  OF  PLAYING-CARDS  107 

of  o  and  .r/a.174  The  (AT)  values  indicate  the  number  of  cases  out  of 
iooo  which  may  be  expected  to  fall  between  o  and  plus  or  minus  the 
deviations  shown  in  (C).  (L)  gives  the  values  of  the  deviations  in  (C) 
in  per  cent,  which  will  satisfy  the  requirement  that  P  =  0.76.  (M) 
gives  in  per  cent  limits,  3.29  X  o,  beyond  which  only  one  case  in  1000 
may  be  expected  to  fall;  and  (N )  gives  the  maximum  positive  deviation 
in  per  cent,  and  (P)  gives  the  theoretical  limit,  also  in  per  cent,  stated 
in  the  first  line  of  Table  XLI,  for  comparison  with  the  empirically  de- 
rived limits. 

Line  (C)  shows  how  little  the  mean  (A)  deviates  from  the  prob- 
able number  (B).  The  deviation,  in  most  of  the  cases,  does  not  exceed 
2  X  PEM,  which  is  a  limit  beyond  which  the  mean  may  be  expected  to 
fall  in  one  case  out  of  every  6  cases  of  10,000  experiments  such  as  ours. 
Only  two  deviations  (+0.28  on  the  Card  and  +0.57  on  Suit  on  the  "Card 
Imaged"  side  of  the  table)  approach  closely  the  limit  of  3  X  PEM,  (F), 
beyond  which  the  mean  may  be  expected  to  fall  once  in  every  22  cases. 
For  these  deviations  to  be  "significant"  they  should  equal  at  least 
5  X  PEM,  ( G )  :  that  would  indicate  that  there  would  be  only  one  chance 
in  13 1 1  cases  for  the  mean  to  coincide  with  the  theoretically  expected 
number  (B).  Line  (L)  shows  this  limit  in  per  cent  of  number  of  sets 
(100),  and  line  (AT)  shows  how  small  is  the  deviation  of  the  mean  from 
the  probable  number,  by  indicating  the  number  of  cases  in  a  distribu- 
tion of  1000  which  may  be  expected  to  fall  between  the  limits  below 
and  above  the  mean,  equal  to  the  deviation.  So  much  for  the  relation 
between  our  central  measure,  the  mean,  and  its  deviation  from  the  prob- 
able number,  as  revealed  by  the  Probable  Error  of  the  mean,  which  is 
derived  from  the  facts  of  the  actual  distribution  of  R  cases  in  our  100 
sets  of  experiments.  Were  there  a  general  force  beyond  chance  work- 
ing in  most  of  the  sets  for  R  cases,  it  should  be  detected  here  in  the 
mean.  In  case  such  a  force  expressed  itself  in  a  few  sets  only,  the 
mean  might  not  reveal  it. 

Whether  some  of  the  sets  exceeded  chance  in  number  of  R  cases, 
so  far  as  the  question  can  be  settled  by  a  central  measure,  must  be  as- 
certained by  means  of  the  measure  of  variability — the  Standard  Devia- 
tion (a),  shown  in  line  (H),  which  fixes  the  negative  and  positive  lim- 
its from  the  mean  between  which  68%  of  all  the  cases  distributed  may 
be  expected  to  fall :  3a,  given  in  per  cent  of  number  of  experiments  ( 50 
in  a  set)  in  line  (1),  is  a  convenient  limit  beyond  which  only  3  cases 
out  of  1000  may  be  expected  to  fall.     When  the  largest  positive  devia- 


174  Davenport,  op.  cit.,  pp.  noff. 


108  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

tion  (JV)  is  compared  with  (/)  and  (M),  the  latter  of  which  gives  the 
limit  beyond  which  but  i  case  out  of  iooo  may  be  expected  to  fall,  it  is 
pretty  clear  that  the  limits  of  distribution  of  the  R  cases  in  our  ioo  sets 
are  quite  close  to  what  is  expected  of  chance  deviation,  and  that,  there- 
fore, the  R  cases  in  single  sets  have  not  been  augmented  by  some  cause 
Desides  chance,  sufficient  in  amount  to  place  any  of  them  beyond  the  ex- 
pected limit. 

By  comparison  of  (N)  and  (P)  one  can  see  that  the  theoretical 
deviation  from  the  probable  per  cent  (P)  demanded  of  the  number  of 
R  cases  in  a  set,  in  order  to  be  considered  proof  of  some  cause  besides 
chance,  lies  fairly  close  to  the  maximum  positive  deviation,  expressed 
in  per  cent  (N),  which  we  have  found  in  our  distributions  of  the  R 
cases  of  sets.  This  may  be  regarded  as  justifying  the  use  of  the  formu- 
lae by  which  Tables'  XLI  and  XLIo  and  their  accompanying  curves  were 
derived,  since  for  a  set  of  50,  where  deviations  are  likely  to  be  quite  er- 
ratic, our  empirically  derived  limit  of  chance  so  closely  approximates 
the  limit  theoretically  derived. 

One  remaining  single  measure,  deferred  from  preceding  pages,175 
may  now  claim  our  attention :  the  measure  of  the  Closeness  of  Fit 176 
of  the  curves  of  distribution  of  R  cases  in  the  "Card  Imaged"  experi- 
ments, with  their  corresponding  theoretical  curves.  For  the  "Card,"  177 
for  example,  this  measure  is  2.9,  with  a  probability  of  0.169;  which 
means  that  the  fit  is  sufficiently  close  to  be  expected  in  169  cases  out  of 
1000,  when  the  deviations  are  due  to  chance  alone.  The  other  measures 
in  the  following  table  are  to  be  similarly  interpreted : 

A  P 

Card     2.9  0.169 

Color    4-92  0.084 

Number     2.89  0.760 

Suit    408  0.274 

170  Vide,  supra,  pp.  96-97,  104-5. 

176  For  Formula;,  vide,  infra,  p.  no. 

177  Vide,  Plate  V,  supra,  p.  99. 


guessing  of  playing-cards  109 

Statistical  Expectation  of  Reagents. 

As  has  been  noted,  the  experience  of  the  experimentation  in  the 
laboratory  usually  left  the  reagent's  faith  in  the  telepathic  hypothesis 
whole.  He  usually  discriminated  from  three  to  five  degrees  of  certainty 
with  which  he  made  his  guess,  and  since  about  18%  of  the  guesses  were 
made  with  a  high  degree  of  certainty,  that  is,  with  a  definite  feeling 
that  they  stood  a  much  better  chance  of  being  right  than  a  pure  guess 
would  have,  he  often  frankly  expected  statistical  confirmation.  Out  of 
70  reagents,  52  were  able,  after  they  had  been  given  a  list  of  the  prob- 
able per  cent  of  R  cases  for  the  various  rubrics  to  be  expected  from 
chance  alone,  to  express  their  statistical  expectation  in  quantitative  form 
(per  cent  of  the  whole  number  of  experiments  in  a  set).  These  esti- 
mates are  put  in  Table  XLIXa,178  the  footings  from  which  are  included 
in 

TABLE  XLIX. 
Per  Cent  of  R  Cases  expected  by  Reagents.     (52  Reagents). 

Card  Color  No.  Suit       W       Total 

(A)  Total  R  Cases  Expected...        319    3342  880.5  1939  1457-8    5200 

(B)  Average    Per   Cent 6.14     64.3  16.9  37.2        28.0 

(C)  Probable    Per    Cent 2.50      50.0  10.0  25.0        45.0 

(£>)    Dev.   Set    of   100 +3.64   +143  +6-9  +12.2  -17.0 

(£)   Dev.  Set  of  50 +728   4^8.6  +13.8  +24.4  -34.0 

Minimal   Signif.  Dev.* 

(F)  a.  Set    of   50 +9-37    +3°.o    +18.0   +26.0      -36.0 

(G)  b.  Set    of   2000 +1.48      +4-7      +2.8      +4.1        -7.1 

Dev.  of  Results : 

(H)   a.  Card    Not    Imaged +0.43     +1-7      -K>7     +°-9        -1-7 

(J)    b.  Card    Imaged +0.29     -0.2        0.0     +1.2        +0.7 

By  comparison  of  the  expected  Deviation,  line  (£.),  with  the  Prob- 
able Per  Cent,  line  (C),  and  with  the  Minimal  Significant  Deviation 
for  a  set  of  50  (F),  it  may  be  seen  that  the  average  expectation  for  a 
single  set  was  quite  close  to  but  not  above  the  limit  of  chance ;  but  for 
a  set  of  2000  (G),  somewhat  less  than  the  number  of  Card  Imaged  ex- 
periments   in   their   aggregate   results,    it   greatly   exceeds   the   limit   of 

*  From  Table  XLI,  supra,  p.  89. 
178  Appendix  A. 


110  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

chance.  The  relations  between  the  expected  deviations,  the  limit  of 
chance,  and  the  actual  results  of  the  Card  Imaged  part  of  these  reagents' 
work  may  be  more  clearly  perceived  in  Plate  X,  in  which  lines  (£), 
(G),  and  (7)  are  illustrated. 

The  distribution  of  the  expected  values,  shown  in  the  accompany- 
ing curves  (Plate  XI),  deviates  quite  widely  from  the  distribution  of 
the  probability  values. 

If  the  measure  of  Closeness  of  Fit170  of  the  expected  to  the  theo- 
retical curve  for  the  "Card"  may  be  taken  as  a  general  indication  of  the 
extent  expectation  exceeded  probability  for  all  the  rubrics  in  general, 
we  find  that  there  are  only  about  two  chances  in  one  septillion  trials  for 
the  expectation  to  be  fulfilled  by  chance. 

(A  =  1 1.66.    P  =  0.000,000,000,000,000,000,000,002,381 ) .* 

Closeness  of  Fit  calculated  in  like  manner  for  the  distribution  of  R 
cases  on  the  "Card,"  for  all  reagents  when  the  card  was  imaged  (see 
Column  C,  Exactly  x,  Table  XLIII,  and  Plate  V),1'0  indicates  that  169 
out  of  1000  curves  such  as  ours  may  be  expected  to  deviate  as  much  as 
ours  from  the  theoretical  curve  (A  =  2.9;   P  =  0.169). 181 

Analysis  of  Experience. 

The  records  of  the  10,000  introspections  show  that  altogether 
guesses  were  made  with  five  grades  of  certainty,  and  as  a  whole  were 
distributed,  in  per  cent,  as  follows: 


A 

B 

C 

D 

Guess 

Indeterminate 

3-88 

14-03 

37-ii 

26.16 

16.25 

2-57 

Four  reagents  out  of  the  100  used  less  than  three  grades,  while  the  ma- 


r  \  2    ^  2-4   ^    2-4-6  -I-----1-    2-4-6...  A— 3   /' 

A  =  number  of  classes  in  the  distribution,  and  e  is  the  base  of  the  Napierian  log- 
arithms. /    S'2 

"»  Davenport,  op.  cit.,  p.  24,  gives  it  as  A  =  ^/^  ■  in  which  bx  is  the  dif- 
ference between  the  theoretical  value  (v)  and  the  observed  frequency  (/)  of  each 
respective  class  in  the  distribution,  and  2  is  the  sign  of  summation. 

180  Supra,  pp.  07-09. 

i8i  Supra,  p.  108. 


40- 

Card 

Color 

Number 

Suit 

20- 

0- 

3= 


it 


Expected 


Limit  of  Chance.      Set  of  2ooo. 


Actual  Results,    "Card  Imaged" 

Plate  X. —  Deviation  from  Probability  Expected  by  52  Reagents,  on  Card,  Color, 

Number,  and  Suit,  compared  with  the  Limit  of  Chance  and  the  Actual  Results. 
(The  values  plotted  in  the  first  curve  will  be  found  in  Table  XLIXa,  Appendix  A.) 


e*rd 


ft. 

Tltimber 

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Plate  XI. —  Distribution  of  Expected  Per  Cents  of  Right  Cases  (heavy  line) 
compared  with  Chance  Distribution   (light  line). 
52  Reagents,  5200  Experiments. 
(For  values  in  distribution,  see  Table  XLIX6,  Appendix  A.) 


112  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

jority  (73)  used  more  than  three;    the  individual  variation  is  shown  in 
the  following  distribution : 

Number   of   Grades   used....       03345 
Number   of    Reagents 2  2  23  41  32 

The  outstanding  fact  in  the  reagent's  experience  of  guessing  cards 
is  this  variability  of  the  certainty  or  confidence  with  which  the  guess  is 
made.  It  no  doubt  constitutes  a  strong  support  for  a  hospitable  attitude 
toward  the  telepathic  hypothesis,  as  it  does  for  the  reagent's  definite  ex- 
pectation that  statistical  verification  lies  in  the  data  of  his  experiments. 
The  causes  for  this  subjective  basis  for  the  belief  in  thought-transfer- 
ence can  only  be  found  by  a  thorough  analysis  of  the  experience  of  the 
reagent. 

His  records  also  show  that  during  the  critical  interval  of  the  ex- 
periment, while  his  eyes  are  closed  and  he  is  passively  alert  for  an  "im- 
pression" of  some  card,  pertinent  imagery  of  some  sort  presents  itself 
in  his  mind,  and  sometimes  with  great  vividness  and  force.  With  re- 
spect to  the  mode  of  the  imagery,  individuals  vary  considerably.  Some 
of  the  reagents  were  dominantly  Visual  (39%),  some  Auditory  (2%), 
some  Kinaesthetic  (feeling  of  the  organs  of  pronunciation)  (4%); 
some  used  predominantly  two  modes:  Visual  and  Auditory  (19%), 
Visual  and  Kinaesthetic  (13%),  Kinaesthetic  and  Auditory  (3%); 
while  others  used  freely  imagery  of  all  modes  (18%),  or  were  doubtful 
about  the  imagery  in  which  their  impressions  came  (2%).  The  dis- 
tribution of  individuals  with  respect  to  dominant  mode  of  imagery  was : 

Dominant    Mode V 

Number  of  Reagents 39 

The  experience  of  the  individual  reagent,  however,  was  not  uniform,  as 
in  routine,  but  varied  during  his  set  of  100  experiments  to  some  degree, 
in  almost  every  respect  covered  by  the  classification  furnished  him  for 
his  introspections.  Considered  in  the  aggregate  with  respect  to  the  more 
dominant  mode  of  the  imagery  from  which  the  guesses  were  made,  the 
cases  distribute  as  follows : 

More    Dominant    Mode V  A  K  None     Undetermined 

Per  Cent  of  Guesses 49-2         18.4         157  16.3  1.0 

The  reagent's  feeling  of  certainty  was  not  usually  determined  by 
the  mode  of  his  impression,  however, — although  there  were  sixteen  re- 
agents who  stated  that  the  visual  mode,  and  five  that  the  auditory,  was 
preferred, — but  by  special  intensity,  quality,  or  behavior  of  the  imagery 


A 

K 

VA 

VK 

KA  Mixed    Doubtful 

2 

4 

19 

13 

3         18            2 

GUESSING  OF   PLAYING-CARDS 


113 


or  sensations  which  came  into  his  mind  during  the  critical  interval.  This 
information  is  derived  both  from  the  recorded  replies  to  the  last  ques- 
tion in  the  Outline  for  Introspections,  asking  why  the  guess  was  graded 
high,  and  from  private  interview  after  the  reagent's  experiments  were 
over  and  he  was  requested  to  explain  more  fully  his  introspections. 

That  the  experiences  which  contributed  a  high  degree  of  certainty 
to  the  guess  were  unusual  is  indicated  by  the  relatively  small  number  of 
high  grades  recorded  by  the  various  reagents:  82%  gave  grade  A  to 
less  than  6%  of  their  guesses,  and  55%  gave  a  high  grade  (either  A  or 
B )  to  less  than  16%  of  their  guesses,  as  may  be  calculated  from  the 
following  table,  which  shows  the  distribution,  and  the  accompanying 
curves  (29  reagents  gave  grade  A  from  1  to  5  times)  : 

No.   of  times   Grade  was  given 0    5  10  15  20  25  30  35  40  45  50  55  60  65  70 

No.  of  Reagents  who  gave  Grade  A. S3  29  10     1     2     1     o     I     2     I 

A  or  B.io  19  11   15    8  10    4    7    4    4    4     1     1     1     1 


No.    of     0' 
Guesses         0 


6      10      15      20      25 


50      85      40      46      50      65      60      65      70      75 


Plate  XII. —  Distribution  of  the  Number  of  A  Grades   (solid  line) 
and  the  Number  of  A  and  B  Grades  (broken  line) 

Given  by  One  Reagent, 
loo  Reagents.     1-5  plotted  on  5;    6-10  on  10;    etc. 

Recorded  interviews  give  the  opinion  of  the  reagent,  as  generalized 
from  his  experience,  that  his  feeling  of  certainty  depended  upon — 

(/)  The    strength,    vividness,    clearness,    or    distinctness    of    the    imagery    or 
impression ; 

(2)  Its  persistence,  intermittence,  or  recurrence  within  the  critical  interval; 

(3)  Its  appearance  at  the  beginning  or  at  the  end  of  the  interval; 


114  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

(4)  Its  suddenness  of  appearing,  "flashing  out";  or  its  deliberate  and  gradual 
"maturing"  into  definiteness ; 

(5)  Its  apparent  location ;    and  size,  if  visual ; 

(6)  The   completeness   with   which   the   detail   of  the   card   was   represented; 
i7)   Reduplication  of  the  card,  or  its  exclusive  possession  of  the  field; 

(8)  The  impression  of  the  card  in  dual  or  combined  mode ; 

(9)  A  sense  of  reality  of  the  impression; 

(10)  Special  content  or  behavior  of  the  imagery  accepted  as  significant; 
(//)   A  sense  of  the  independence  of  the  impression  from  mental  process  or 

volition ; 

(/.?)   An  inner  feeling  of  certainty,  not  further  analyzable ; 

(13)   An  extra-self  active  principle; 

(.14)  Some  accompanying  element  of  experience  accepted  as  a  token  of  cer- 
tainty, such  as  a  vibration  in  the  ear ; 

{15)  Or  merely  an  inference  from  favoring  circumstances,  such  as  freedom 
from  distraction,  a  clear  mind,  good  concentration,  etc. 

The  recorded  introspections  support  these  generalizations : 
(/)  "Very  distinct"  (2:5:2),*  "Very  vivid"  (4:7:3),  "Strength  of  impres- 
sion" (9:1:1),  "Vividness"  (10:4:1),  "Extra  clear"  (11:1:2),  "Extremely 
clear"  (11:6:8),  "Plain  sight  of  card"  (12:1:9),  "Vivid  picture"  (16:9:8), 
"Very'  vivid  and  loud"  (17:4:6),  "Vivid"  (18:4:5),  "Impression  very  vivid" 
(19:1:3),  "More  plain  than  usual"  (33:2:3),  "Unusually  vivid"  (33:6:10), 
"Plainly  seen"  (34:3:5).  "Clearly  heard"  (34:4:6),  "Exceptionally  clear" 
(34:S:9)>  "Distinctly  heard"  (34:6:5),  "Clear  vision"  (35:6:1),  "Appeared  so 
clearly"  (36:1:8),  "It  was  so  plain"  (36:5:2),  "Sounded  quite  sharp"  (39:2:9), 
"Sensation  of  V  and  K  so  clear"  (40:7:1),  "Seemed  shouted  out  at  me" 
(86:8:10),  "Very  vivid"  (88:7:3),  "Strong  (auditory)  impression"  (90:10:3), 
"Very  distinct"  (44:2:6),  "Clear  and  distinct"  (45:2:10),  "Clearest  one  this 
hour"  (41:7:4),  "Saw  it  vividly"  (46:3:5),  "Very  plain"  (47:9:7),  "More  vivid 
impression,  seemed  to  hear  words  plainly"  (48:3:8),  "Saw  it  plainly"  (94:1:2), 
"Heard  it  clearly"  (94:5:2),  "Very  clear  image"  (53:2:2),  "Could  hear  it  dis- 
tinctly" (57:3:3),  "Heard  it  distinctly"  (61:2:4),  "Force  of  it"  (55:1:7),  "Certain 
of  judgment  because  it  sounded  so  distinct  and  plain"  (63:1:10),  "Clearer  picture 
than  usual"  (66:2:1),  "Saw  it  written  out  and  image  seemed  strong"  (66:3:5), 
"Clearest  picture  I  have  got  yet"  (66:6:8),  "Impression  strong,  some  one  speak- 
ing" (73:1:7),  "I  could  see  the  card  stand  out  sharp"  (69:2:9),  "Image  seemed 
especially  distinct"  (79:10:8),  "Felt  my  tongue  saying,  then  saw  the  card" 
(29:6:3),  "Hurt  my  throat"  (6:8:10),  "Felt  it  distinctly  in  throat"  (13:3:7), 
"Was  more  distinct"  (27:5:9),  "Very  clear  feeling  in  throat"  (38:1:8),  "Felt 
strength  [of  impuse  to  speak  it]"  (95"-5:5).  "Strong  impulse"  (51:1:1),  "Strong 
feeling  in  throat  and  impulse  to  pronounce  [name  of  card]"  (84:2:5),  "Great 
desire  to  repeat  'deuce  of  diamonds'"  (33:7:3),  "Am  sure  I  heard  it"  (20:5:7), 
"I  could  see  it"  (20:9:4),  "Saw  it  vividly  in  experimenter's  hand"  (21:1:8), 
"Heard  it  pronounced  emphatically"  (21:6:7),  "Seemed  to  see  that  card" 
(25:2:5),  etc. 


♦The  parentheses  indicate  that  the  quotation  is  made  from  the  records  of  the 
2d  reagent;    his  5th  series,  2d  experiment. 


GUESSING  OF  PLAYING-CARDS  115 

(2)  "Because  V  and  K  persisted"  (3:5:2),  "Definite,  persistent"  (4:8:3), 
"Kept  reappearing  in  mind"  (25:7:6),  "Impression  did  not  change"  (27:7:5), 
"Insistent"  (27:8:4),  "Persistent  [auditory  image]"  (34:1:7),  "Very  persistent 
[visual  image]"  (34:1:9),  "Persistency"  (43:4:4),  "Plainness  and  persistence  of 
sound"  (48:1:3),  "Very  persistent  and  clear"  (53:1:5),  "Very  persistent" 
(56:2:2),  "Saw  clearly  and  continuously"  (57:3:7),  "Card  persisted"  (73:8:9), 
"It  kept  recurring"  (76:3:6),  "Because  of  the  persistency  after  once  heard" 
(78:1:6),  "It  was  hard  to  force  it  out  of  my  mind  although  it  came  the  first 
instant"  (79:9:6),  "Clear  and  persistent"  (88:4:1),  "Loud  and  persistent" 
(88:9:1),   "A   steady  recurrence"    (92:7:6),   "Very  persistent"    (93:1:3),   etc. 

(3)  "Immediate"  (3:8:3),  "Came  immediately  and  was  very  persistent" 
(4:2:5),  "Came  immediately,  persistent"  (4:8:7),  "Kinesthetic  sensation  came 
immediately  and  remained"  (27:1:2),  "Heard  it  immediately"  (27:6:2),  "Impres- 
sion came  immediately"  (90:5:1;  7:10),  "It  came  earlier  than  others"  (41:1:10), 
"Clear,  quick  and  persistent"  (53:1:9),  "Very  quick  and  strong  image"  (53:4:6), 
"It  entered  right  away  and  I  could  not  get  rid  of  it"  (54:1:3),  "Quick  plain 
image  of  the  card"  (54:2:8),  "Came  early"  (56:1:5),  "Saw  card  quickly  and 
clearly"  (47:1:4),  "Came  quick  and  distinct"  (57:2:1),  "Quick  clear  impression" 
(61:10:1),  "It  came  so  strongly  and  quickly"  (66:1:3),  "Came  quick;  I 
imagined  I  could  hear  the  name  of  card"  (68:2:10),  "A  picture  came  as  soon  as 
I  concentrated"  (68:3:9),  "Came  quickly  and  stayed"  (76:9:6),  "Quicker  and 
more  definite  than  most"  (76:8:10),  "Could  see  it  so  plain  and  quickly"  (69:2:1), 
"Came  into  my  mind  immediately"  (70:1:2),  "Picture  at  once"  (70:4:1),  "It 
loomed  up  as  soon  as  I  began;  it  was  very  vivid  all  the  time"  (82:1:7),  "Came 
quickly  and  stayed"  (76:6:9),  "Quicker  and  more  definite  than  most"  (76:8:10), 
"Could  see  it  so  plain  and  quickly"  (69:2:1),  "Came  into  my  mind  immediately" 
(70:1:2;  10:2:2),  "Picture  at  once"  (70:4:1),  "Very  clear  and  quick  to  come 
to  my  mind"  (82:2:4),  "Persistency  and  quickness"  (78:4:3),  "Came  quickly 
and  clearly"  (87:2:7),  "Very  clear  and  immediate"  (90:1:7),  "Impression  came 
immediately"  (90:5.1;  7:10),  "Very'  quick  and  persistent"  (94:2:9),  "Quick 
and  vivid"   (94:10:5),  etc. 

(4)  "At  the  end  [of  the  interval]  the  four  of  spades  came  in  quickly" 
(6:1:9),  "Saw  ace  of  hearts  in  a  flash"  (6:4:5),  "Quickness  of  appearance" 
(12:3:10),  "Quickness"  (22:5:10),  "Vision  of  card  came  suddenly  and  clearly" 
(25:6:6),  "Because  the  impression  came  quickly"  (27:2:7),  "Seemed  to  come 
with  a  vim"  (39:2:6),  "Words  flashed  into  mind"  (33:5:6),  "It  came  suddenly 
and  clearly"  (41:1:8),  "It  jumped  into  view  very  quick  and  clear"  (41  : 2:3),  "Card 
like  a  flash,  and  distinct"  (57:1:10),  "Saw  clearly  and  suddenly"  (57:7:4). 
"Quick  clear  impression"  (61:1:2),  "Because  it  came  to  me  like  a  flash,  and  very 
vivid"  (63:1:5),  "Flashed  before  me,  first  the  number,  then  the  suit"  (66:1:5), 
"Flashed  into  my  mind  instantly"  (74:3:3).  "Plain,  sharp;  flashed  before  my 
eyes"  (69:1:4),  "Had  no  idea  of  number  until  suddenly  I  wished  to  repeat  this" 
(79:3:1),  "Flashed  up  definitely"  (91:5:9),  "Quick  and  vivid"  (94:10:5), 
"Formed  slowly"  (65:8:1),  "Saw  card  slowly,  but  surely  and  clearly"  (57:10:3). 
"This  grew  on  me  more  than  the  others"  (66:1:7),  "I  was  sure  of  this,  as  the 
card  came  in  parts,  first  red,  and  then  the  number  and  suit"  (68:3:8),  "Slow  and 
distinct"  (94:5:9).  etc- 


116  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

(5)  "Near,  big"  (88:5:7),  "Large  and  vivid"  (88:7:5),  "Large  card  plain" 
(91:6:2). 

(6)  Specific  cases  of  "Completeness  of  detail"  are  all  classified  under  the 
first  head  above,  clearness,  distinctness,  etc.  Reagent  6,  however,  states  that  he 
gave  grade  A   if  he  could  count  the  spots. 

(7)  "No  other  ideas"  (3:2:10),  "No  other  card  seen  at  all"  (3:6:7),  "Only 
card  image  I  had"  (25:7:2),  "Single  impression"  (25:9:8),  "Alone  in  field" 
(45:2:6),  "Came  quick  and  sure;  no  other  image"  (68:1:1),  "Came  quick  and 
alone"  (68:1:5),  "I  could  see  nothing  else  but  this  card"  (68:3:4),  "Stood  out 
clearly  as  one  especial  card  from  a  mass"  (36:1:3),  "Saw  deck  spread  out  on 
table;  all  vague  except  one"  (36:2:5),  "Saw  little  3's  all  over"  (6:1:3),  "I 
could  see  about  100  of  them"    (32:8:2). 

(8)  "Both  heard  and  saw  card  whole  interval"  (37:1:6),  "Came  so  quickly 
and   felt   it  in  so  many  ways"    (VAK)    (100:3:6). 

(9)  "Seem  to  see  the  card  as  reality"  (11:3:2),  "Air  of  certainty,  more 
clearly  defined"  (11:3:9),  "Sense  of  reality"  (16:5:6),  "Very  clear  and  vivid, 
good  hunch"  (19:4:2),  "It  seemed  to  be  right"  (41:2:10),  "Saw  and  felt  it  as 
the  card"  (54:6:6),  "Certain  of  judgment;  card  seemed  so  real"  (63:6:10), 
"Positive  as  if   I  were  looking  at  it"   (91:8:8),  "Very  clear  and  real"    (57 :7 :l). 

(10)  "Could  see  it  pinned  on  wall"  (11:8:3),  "Mental  picture  of  card  being 
turned"  (45:6:4),  "Seemed  to  see  the  card  on  the  bottom  of  the  deck"  (48:5:6), 
"Clover"  (97:6:6),  "Saw  one  bright  arrow-point"  (54:3:5).  "Saw  seven  spades 
in  a  circle"  (54:3:6,),  "I  could  see  the  card  floating  through  space"  (68:9:5). 
"Saw  an  old  friend  calling  it  off"  (70:3:3),  "Definite  change  from  what  had  been 
thinking"    (76:1:9),   "It   was   different   from  the   others"    (76:2:7). 

(//)  "Came  without  effort"  (65:1:6).  This  was  usually  taken  for  granted 
by  the  reagents  who  recorded  the  detail  of  the  impression  or  its  specific  charac- 
teristic, in  the  case  of  highly  graded  guesses. 

(12)  "Sure  'feeling'"  (3:10:9),  "Strong  sense  of  right"  (12:3:5),  "Feeling 
of  certainty"  (16:1:7),  "Good  hunch"  (19:6:7),  "Feel  sure  it  was  right" 
(27:6:6),  "Feel  sure  of  it"  (28:8:8),  "Just  felt  that  some  one  else  was  thinking 
of  it"  (79:5:9),  "Feel  it  is  right"  (31:1:7),  "Saw  a  six-spot  almost  at  once; 
feel  it  right"  (36:2:7),  "I  felt  quite  certain"  (41:1:5),  "I  felt  certain"  (41:4:3), 
"Felt  sure"  (41:10:2),  "Could  see  card  plainly  and  felt  I  was  right"  (63:6:7), 
"Inward  feeling"  (63:7:8),  "Strong  feeling  of  correctness"  (66:9:1),  "Merely 
strong  feeling"   (74:1:4),  "Intuition"    (74:2:9),  "Certainty  of  feeling"   (74:3:2). 

(13)  "Something  made  me  listen  to  my  own  voice  repeat  card"  (36:2:2), 
"Something  within  impressed  the  card  vividly  on  my  mind"  (63:3:10),  "Some- 
thing told  me  it  was  correct"   (63:10:9). 

(14)  "Vibration    felt    in    ear"     (27:4:8),    "Seemed    to    ring    in    my    ears" 

(77:2:6). 

(75)  "Room  quiet"  (25:2:2),  "Mind  receptive"  (28:4:9),  "My  mmd  was  in 
best  condition  and  this  card  loomed  up  as  soon  as  I  shut  my  eyes"   (82:1:3). 

There  were  several  exceptional  cases  involving  the  recognition  of  a  true 
impression  of  the  card,  such  as,  "Felt  as  if  struggling  to  get  something  that  I 
knew"  (33:4:5),  or  "the  impression  'fits  right  in',  'imbeds  itself  there'  and  'shuts 
out  other  impressions'"  (56)  ;  and  some  in  which  the  coincidence  was  expected  to 
be  forced  by  the  will,  as,  "I  willed  it  to  be  the  number"   (74:1:2). 


GUESSING  OF  PLAYING-CARDS  117 

This  moderate  selection  from  the  1791  records  of  highly  graded 
guesses  will  perhaps  suffice  to  portray  the  concrete  elements  of  exper- 
ience responsible  for  the  statistical  expectation  recorded  some  pages 
above.  Individual  differences  are  as  wide  here  as  they  usually  are  found 
to  be  in  mental  performances.  But,  if  one  were  to  abstract  from  those 
differences,  and  seek  the  prime  causes  of  confidence  in  guessing,  he 
would  undoubtedly  find  them  in  the  unusual,  or  hitherto  unnoticed,  viv- 
idness of  imagery,  in  its  apparently  independent  or  automatic  appear- 
ance and  behavior,  and  in  equally  automatic  impulses  to  articulation. 
We  have,  then,  in  the  quotations  listed  above,  experiences  constituted 
largely  of ,  or  directly  supported  by,  sensory  and  motor  automatisms. 
Many  of  them  are  so  definite  and  so  cogent  that  they  will  withstand  the 
oft-repeated  criticism  that  "you  cannot  get  the  experience  of  thought- 
transference  in  the  laboratory."  They  are  indistinguishable  from  the 
phrases  used  by  both  private  and  professional  "psychics"  in  describing 
their  experience,  except  that  they  are  more  explicit  in  introspective  re- 
port of  imagery.  So  far  as  subjective  experience  of  the  telepathic  pro- 
cess is  evidence  for  the  objective  existence  of  it,  our  data  seem  valid  for 
testing  the  phenomenon  whether  in  or  out  of  the  laboratory. 

In  the  interest  of  exactness  some  qualification  should  be  made  as 
to  the  value  of  our  highly  graded  guesses.  It  is  true  that  almost  all  of 
the  reagents  who  gave  high  grades  of  certainty  to  some  of  their  guesses 
were  in  a  position  similar  to  that  of  Reagent  100,  who  said  that  the  ex- 
perience of  the  experiments  made  her  feel  more  (than  before)  inclined 
to  expect  that  the  experimenter's  part  makes  a  difference,  and  that  R 
cases  will  to  some  extent  exceed  chance. 

But  there  were  some  exceptions :  Occasionally  a  reagent  graded 
"provisionally"  on  the  basis  of  the  vividness  of  his  experience  and,  like 
Reagent  55,  expected  some  excess  in  R  cases,  or  like  Reagent  69,  con- 
sidering his  momentary  feeling  of  certainty  wholly  unreliable  as  indica- 
tive of  anything  beyond  pure  chance,  expected  probability  results. 

Although  the  inner  experience  of  thought-transference  occurred  in 
a  substantial  proportion  of  our  experiments  in  the  laboratory,  it,  like  the 
highly  graded  guess  which  it  determined,  fell  indifferently  upon  the 
"Card  Not  Imaged"  and  the  "Card  Imaged"  experiments,  and  no  more 
often  than  the  low-graded  guess  produced  an  R  case  (see  lines  (H)  and 
(/)  in  Table  XLIX).182 


182  Supra,  p.  109. 


118  thought-tra  nsference 

Application  of  Our  Results  to  the  Making  of  a  "Mental 

Telepathist." 

If  the  reader  cares  for  a  practical  application  of  certain  facts  which 
he  now  holds  in  mind,  let  him  consider  the  reagent  a  solid-headed  man 
of  business,  his  inner  experience  of  thought-transference  an  interesting 
phase  of  his  work-a-day  life,  and  our  data  the  events  from  which  he 
draws  his  conclusions  concerning  the  objective  occurrence  of  thought- 
transference;  this  "mental  telepathist,"  especially  if  he  is  inclined  to 
make  experimental  mysticism  his  avocation,  will  almost  necessarily, 
unless  he  holds  rigidly  to  scientific  procedure  and  mathematics,  establish 
his  faith  upon  the  facts  of  experience — partial,  fatally  selected,  expe- 
rience. He  finds  that  his  feeling  correlates  with  coincidence ;  apart 
from  the  many  partial  successes,  he  may  list : 183 

(i)   Hits   on   Cards   Imaged. 

i.   (79:10:8)   "Image    seemed    especially    distinct" BIS  1 

2.  (78:2:8)     "Could   hear  card  named  persistently" R7D  5 

3.  (32:8:2)     "I  could  see  about  100  of  them" RID  5 

4.  (66:6:8)     "Clearest  picture  I  have  got  yet" B6S  5 

5.  (66:9:1)     "Strong   feeling   of   correctness" R2D  1 

6.  (68 :  s  :  8)     "The  name  of  the  card  came  to  me  quick" BSS  5 

7.  (68:10:6)   "I  could  hear  the  name  of  the  card  called" R6H  1 

He  has  the  acknowledgment  of  the  second  person,  corresponding 
to  our  experimenter,  that  these  received  and  tabulated  thoughts  were  ac- 
tually his  thoughts  at  the  time  of  the  inner  experience,  (Odd  die-spots). 

These  hits  give  him  much  gratification  and  are  frequently  recalled 
and  related.     They  furnish  strong  items  for  generalization. 

During  his  search  for  truth  he  has  made  also  another  list : 

(2)   Hits  on  Cards  Not  Imaged. 

I.   (32:9:3)     "Awful   plain"    R5H  4 

2-  (37:1:7)     "Heard    in    distant    voice" R9D  2 

3.   (90 :  7  :  10)   "Came   immediately"    R6D  2 

4-   (63:3:10)   "Something  within  impressed  the  card  vividly  on  my  mind"..B6C  6 

5.  (66:10:4)   "Especially    good    image" B7S  4 

6.  (70:1:2)     "Came   into   my   mind   immediately" R2H  6 

7.  (70:4:7)     "Immediate   picture"    R4H  2 


183  To  interpret  the  first  line :  Reagent  79,  in  the  8th  experiment  of  the  10th 
series  of  his  set,  gave  as  a  reason  for  the  high  grade  of  certainty  with  which  he 
made   his   guess  the   phrase   within   the   quotation   marks.     The   card   held   by   the 


GUESSING  OF   PLAYING-CARDS  119 

These  indeed  have  been  coincidences,  and  the  second  party  acknowl- 
edges that  those  specific  facts  were  in  his  mind  "about"  the  time  of  the 
inner  experience.  They  also  are  hits,  and  are  also  recalled  and  reported 
with  satisfaction.  The  fact  that  the  coincidence  involved  the  content  of 
but  one  mind  ("Card  Not  Imaged,"  as  indicated  by  the  Even  die-spots) 
is  not  easily  checked  up  or,  indeed,  brought  to  notice  at  all. 

These  are  the  oases  of  adventure  in  the  occult.  Hundreds  of  par- 
tial successes,  bewildering  in  their  detail,  are  also  recorded.  Yet  many 
other  facts  have  been  noticed  but  have  not  been  often  recalled,  much 
less  listed ; 

(3)   Complete  Misses. 

1.  (78:4:3)     "Persistency    and    quickness" R6H     3 

2.  (79:5:9)     "Just  felt  that  some  one  else  was  thinking  of  it" R7D     6 

3.  (79:6:5)     "Impression   was   very   vivid" B8C    5 

4.  (79:9:6)     "It  was  hard  to  force  it  out  of  my  mind  although  it  came 

the  first  instant"   R2H  I 

5-  (33:5:6)     "Words   flashed   into   my   mind" B6C  I 

6-  (33:7:3)     "Great  desire  to  repeat  'deuce  of  diamonds'" R2D  3 

7.(34:6:5)     "Distinctly   heard"    B6C  4 

8.   (36:2:7)     "Saw  a  6-spot  almost  at  once;  felt  it  right" R6D  2 

9-  (87:2:7)     "Came   quickly   and   clearly" R6H  3 

10.  (41:1:5)  "I    felt   quite   certain" BiS  6 

11.  (41:1:8)  "It  came  suddenly  and  clearly" B9S  3 

12.  (41:2:10)  "It  seemed  to  be   right" R2H  4 

13.  (41  :  6:6)  "I  felt  very  certain" R3H  3 

14.  (41  :  10  :  2)  "Felt  sure"   R9D  2 

15-   (43:9:7)  "Inward    feeling"    B5C  3 

16.  (47:9:7)     "Very    plain"    B4C  6 

17.  (63:6:7)     "Could  see  card  plainly  and  felt  I  was  right" R10H  3 

18.  (63:10:9)   "Something  told  me  it  was  correct" B2S  2 

etc.  for  250  cases.     (To  balance  the  other  lists.) 

These  are  not  hits  and  are  not  interesting;  their  very  frequency 
seems  to  make  them  common  and  cheap ;  they  never  attain  sufficient 
weight  to  qualify  a  generalization,  except  the  suggestion  that  the  condi- 
tions essential  for  telepathy  are  unknown  and  can,  therefore,  be  fulfilled 
only  by  accident.  Our  mental-telepathist  has  experienced  telepathy ; 
negative  cases  prove  nothing. 


experimenter  was  Black,  the  Ace  of  Spades,  which,  as  indicated  by  Die-spot  /, 
was  held  during  the  critical  interval  in  sharp  visual  impression.  The  black-face 
type  indicates  that  the  guess  was  correct  with  respect  to  all  the  elements  of  the 
card — Color,   Number,  and   Suit. 


120 


THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 


Then  there  is  this  remaining  list  of  often-noticed,  but  not  sufficiently 
weighed,  cases : 

(4)   Complete  Chance  Hits. 


I 

(1:1  :4)               "Pure  Guess" 

R7D 

1 

2 

(1:1:7) 

1                     " 

B8C 

5 

3 

(5:4:0 

'                    " 

R5H 

2 

4 

(5:5:2) 

<                tt 

R2D 

5 

S 

(5:5:4) 

t                it 

B5S 

4 

6 

(177:1) 

t                tt 

B9S 

2 

7 

(21:9:5) 

<                a 

B9C 

4 

8 

(25:1:1) 

t                (I 

R9D 

3 

9 

(25:2:9) 

*                " 

R5D 

6 

10 

(25:5:5) 

*                " 

BIOS 

4 

11 

(27:10:4) 

t                u 

R4H 

3 

12 

(32:10:5) 

t                tt 

R3H 

6 

13 

i37-3-3) 

t              u 

B4S 

6 

14 

(40 :6  :4) 

t            tl 

B4S 

3 

15 

(40:6:7) 

1              tt 

R4H 

1 

16 

(42:6:4) 

1           It 

R5H 

3 

17 

(48:6:7) 

t           « 

B6C 

2 

18 

(50:1:9) 

1              u 

B1C 

2 

19 

(50  7:3) 

t                ft 

R10H 

1 

20 

(59:2:7) 

1             « 

B7C 

1 

21 

(60:5:3) 

t            u 

B5S 

2 

22 

(60:10:10) 

f                tt 

R9H 

3 

23 

(78:7:8) 

t           " 

R4D 

5 

24 

(85:6:1) 

t            " 

R7H 

6 

25 

(gr:6:8) 

(             it 

RID 

4 

26 

(98:3:5) 

B6S 

3 

There  is  no  "inner  experience"  of  coincidence  here;  they  are  indif- 
ferent facts,  these  chance  hits ;  coincidence,  of  course,  must  happen  by 
chance  quite  often.  Our  searcher  for  truth  observes  with  a  glance  and 
passes  to  the  enjoyment  of  recalling  "incontestable"  cases,  validated  by 
"inner  experience." 

The  reader  should  not  infer,  from  this  application  of  our  experi- 
mental results  to  the  normal  development  of  a  "Mental-Telepathist," 
that  an  objective  thought-transference  is  to  be  altogether  discredited. 
There  are  quite  a  few  good  men  and  true  who  suspect  that  it  is  a  fact 
of  nature.  He  should,  rather,  especially  if  he  is  a  "Mental-Telepathist," 
recognize  in  the  method  of  investigation  exemplified  in  these  experi- 
ments a  way  in  which  telepathy  may  be  indisputably  brought  to  light, 
and  then  suspend  his  judgment  until  verifiable  proof  is  produced.  Dis- 
credit is,  indeed,  thrown  upon  the  telepathic  hypothesis  by  proponents 
who  accept  "selected"  cases  as  proof.  "Selection"  is  one  of  some  half- 
dozen  serious  errors  which  cloud  the  evidence  for  telepathy.184 


184  Vide,  footnote  125,  p.  50. 


GUESSING  OF  PLAYING-CARDS  121 


Corneal  Reflection. 1SS 

In  order  to  have  some  sets  that  would  illustrate  the  distribution  of 
R  cases  when  a  known  cause  operates  with  chance  in  a  greater  or  less 
degree,  it  was  arranged  for  one  group  of  students  to  perform  the  exper- 
iments in  Card-Guessing  according  to  a  change  in  method  which  put 
the  reagent  in  possession  of  a  reading  telescope  through  which  upon 
occasion  he  could  see  the  reflection  of  the  card  upon  the  cornea  of  the 
left  eye  of  the  experimenter.  The  reagent  faced  the  experimenter  across 
a  table  1.2  meters  in  width,  and  was  securely  screened  from  him  by 
black  cardboard  into  which  the  end  of  the  telescope  was  fitted.  Before 
the  experimenter  tapped  the  signal  announcing  the  beginning  of  the 
critical  interval  he  adjusted  his  left  eye  into  alignment  with  the  objective 
lens  of  the  telescope  through  a  large  lens  mounted  10  cm.  from  his  face. 
He  followed  the  same  procedure  that  the  other  experimenters  followed, 
in  the  conduct  of  the  experiments,  except  that  when  a  i-spot  or  a  5-spot 
face  was  thrown  by  the  die,  instead  of  holding  the  card  drawn  in  his 
hand  he  placed  it  in  a  rack  mounted  at  the  left  of  the  large  lens.  Since 
the  light  from  the  windows  at  his  back  fell  freely  upon  the  face  of  the 
card,  and  his  eye  was  in  shadow,  a  very  clear  image  of  the  card  (about 
one-fifth  diameter  of  the  card  in  size)  could  be  got  by  the  reagent  in 
case  he  could  adjust  the  focus  of  the  telescope  before  the  end  of  the 
interval.  The  reagent,  being  in  ignorance  of  the  control  of  the  experi- 
ment, was  compelled  each  time  to  focus  his  instrument  and  help  out  his 
guessing  as  best  he  could. 

Five  sets  were  obtained,  and  the  results  are  displayed  at  the  end  of 
Table  XIII  (C)  ;186  deviations  from  probability  in  Table  XIV  (C)  ;18' 
R  cases  and  deviations  of  Set  V  on  die-spots  are  shown  in  Table  XIX.1*8 
The  results  of  this  set  were  used  to  illustrate  the  method  of  searching 
for  extra-chance  causes  of  R  cases.189 


186  That  Corneal  Reflection  has  played  a  role  in  experiments  in  thought- 
transference,  suggested  this  particular  extra-chance  cause.  Vide,  infra,  pp.  174, 
214;  cf.,  also,  Thomas:  Thought  Transference,  1905,  p.  28;  and  Podmore :  Ap- 
paritions and  Thought-Transference,  1894,  p.  12. 

186  Supra,  p.  62. 

187  Supra,  p.  63. 

188  Supra,  p.  68. 
™»  Supra,  pp.  67  ft. 


122 


THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 


The  aggregate  results  are  distributed  over  the  die-spots  in  the  fol- 
lowing table : 

TABLE  L. 
Corneal  Reflection.     R  Cases  distributed  over  the  Die-Spots. 


Card  Not  Imaged 

1 

Card  Imaged 

Die 

Card  Color     No.    Suit     W 

Tot. 

Die 

Card  Color 

No.     Suit 

W 

Tot. 

2 

3           32            12         22 

37 

76 

/ 

64 

98 

88        70 

2 

101 

4 

3        44        io      20 

29 

77 

3 

5 

41 

11         19 

42 

86 

6 

i        42        10      22 

43 

92 

5 

43 

63 

53        50 

4 

68 

Totals 

7      118        32      64 

109 

24S 
Per 

Cent. 

112 

202 

152      139 

48 

255 

Die 

Card    Color    No. 

Suit 

W 

Die 

Card 

Col. 

Dr     No. 

Suit 

W 

2 

3.95      42.1       158 

29.0 

48.7 

1 

634 

97- 

1      87.2 

69.4 

2.0 

4 

3.00      57.1       13.0 

26.0 

37-6 

3 

5-8 

47.7       12.8 

22.1 

48.8 

6 

1.09      45.6      10.9 

23-9 

46.7 

5 

63.2 

92.7      78.0 

73-5 

5-9 

Totals      2.86 


13.1 


26.1       44.5 


43-9      79-i       59-5      545 


Deviation   from   Probability,  Per  Cent. 


Die 

Card     Color     No. 

Suit 

W 

2 

+1.45      -7-9      +5-8 

+4.0 

+3-7 

4- 

+1.40      +7.1      +3.0 

+1.0 

-7A 

$ 

-1  .41      -4.4     40.9 

-1.1 

+i-7 

Totals 

+0.36      -1.9      +3.1 

+  1.1 

-OS 

Limit 

of    Chance    Deviation 

Die  Card  Color  No.  Suit 

/  +60.90  +47.1  +77.2  +444 

3  +3.30  -2.3  +2.8  -2.9 

.i  +60.70  +42.7  +68.0  +48.5 


W 
-43-0 

+3-8 
-39-1 


+41.40    +29.1    +49.5    +29.5    -26.2 
±4.15    ±13.3      ±8.0    ±11.5    ±13.2 


Here  some  cause  operated  more  or  less  effectively  in  one-third  of 
the  experiments,  or  in  two-thirds  of  the  "Card  Imaged"  experiments. 
By  comparison  of  the  deviations  in  Table  XIV  (C)190  with  Table 
XLI  191  it  may  be  seen  that  on  the  "Card"  and  on  "Number"  (Card 
Imaged)  the  deviations  in  all  sets  are  above  the  theoretical  limit  of 
chance ;  on  "Color"  and  on  "Suit"  Sets  II,  ///,  and  V,  fall  below,  the 
reagents  having  found  some  difficulty  in  determination  and  having  to 
guess  more  often.  If  the  aggregate  results  are  compared  with  the  theo- 
retical limit  of  chance  (in  the  above  table,  last  two  lines),  however,  all 
deviations  on  the  "Card  Imaged"  side  exceed  the  latter  considerably. 

Two  reagents  graded  their  judgments:   Reagent  /  gave  5  A's,  6  B's, 


i»o  Supra,  p.  63. 
101  Supra,  p.  89. 


GUESSING  OF  PLAYING-CARDS  123 

7  C's,  and  2  D's,  all  on  die-spots  /  or  5,  with  the  following  result  in  per 
cent  of  R  cases: 


Grade 

Card 

Color 

No. 

Suit 

W 

A 

100 

100 

100 

100 

0 

B 

100 

100 

100 

100 

0 

C 

43 

100 

100 

43 

0 

D 

100 

100 

100 

0 

0 

Reagent  V,  who  had  greater  difficulty  with  the  apparatus,  gave  11 

high  grades,  the  aggregate  R  cases  of  which  exceeding  the  probable  per 

cent  as  follows:  ,,     ,      r.  ,         XT        c  ■,        „r 

Card       Color       No.       Suit         W 

Deviation,    Per    Cent +24.5        +41         +35        +30        -36 

This  material  is  of  service  principally  in  illustrating  our  method 
of  statistical  inquiry,  which  it  vindicates  in  showing  that  confident  judg- 
ments fall  upon  odd  die-spots  and  correlate  with  R  cases  and  that  the 
latter  also  are  correlated.192 

Conclusion. 
The  majority  of  students  in  our  large  general  courses  in  psychology 
are  favorably  disposed  toward  the  telepathic  hypothesis.  The  results  of 
10,000  guesses  of  cards  made  by  100  reagents  selected  from  these  classes 
because  of  their  favorable  attitude,  working  in  laboratory  partnership 
with  experimenters  likewise  selected,  show 

(1)  That  71%  of  the  reagents  graded  some  of  their  guesses  high, 
indicating  that  they  expected  those  particular  guesses  to  stand  a  much 
better  chance  of  being  right  than  "pure  guesses"  would  stand ; 

(2)  That  18%  of  all  the  guesses  were  graded  high; 

(3)  That  causes  of  the  high  grades  lie  in  various  forms  of  sensory 
and  motor  automatisms  which  in  their  concrete  expressions  testify  to 
the  occurrence  of  the  "inner  experience"  of  thought-transference  here 
in  our  laboratory  ;  • 

(4)  That  various  statistical  treatments  of  the  data  fail  to  reveal 
any  cause  beyond  chance  operating  for  R  cases,  whether  the  guesses  are 
graded  high  or  low ; 


192  An  amusing  incident  occurred  when  Experimenter  IV  returned  his  re- 
sults, and  since  it  illustrates  the  power  of  a  few  chance  hits  to  break  down  scien- 
tific reserve  it  may  be  worthy  of  record.  He  said  that  after  the  experiments  were 
concluded  he  learned  by  checking  up  results  that  the  reagent's  telescope  often 
revealed  in  his  eye  the  card  he  was  thinking  of  (die-spot  3  determining  the  con- 
cealing of  the  card  and  holding  it  in  kinaesthetic  imagery),  and  thought  there  must 
be  some  way  by  which  his  imagery  escaped  through  his  organs  of  vision. 


124  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

(5)  That  the  "inner  experience"  of  thought-transference  occurs 
indifferently  in  control  and  regular  experiments  and  with  Wrong  and 
Right  cases ; 

(6)  That  the  determinations  of  values  derived  from  theoretical 
probability  are  closely  approximated  by  those  derived  from  inductive 
probability,  as  afforded  by  our  Control  experiments,  and  are  as  satisfac- 
tory as  the  latter  for  comparison  with  the  values  derived  from  the 
Regular  experiments  for  the  purpose  of  testing  the  latter  for  an  influ- 
ence beyond  chance  working  for  R  cases ; 

(7)  That  the  deviations  of  neither  the  single  values  nor  the  distri- 
butions of  the  Regular  experiments  exceed  chance,  either  theoretical  or 
empirical ;    and  consequently 

(8)  That  no  trace  of  an  objective  thought-transference  is  found 
either  as  a  capacity  shared  in  a  low  degree  by  our  normal  reagents  in 
general  (Richet's  "Suggestion  Mentale" )  or  as  a  capacity  enjoyed  in 
perceptible  measure  by  any  of  the  individual  normal  reagents. 

These  negative  results,  together  with  those  found  by  the  Ameri- 
can 193  and  the  British  19i  societies  for  psychical  research,  may  be  taken 
to  indicate  that  the  normal  person  who  has  telepathic  power  is  relatively 
rare,  as  has  been  surmised  by  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,105  and  that  the  telepathic 
experience,  if  it  occurs  at  all,  probably  occurs  only  when  the  mind  is  in 
a  "critical"  state — a  principle  suggested  by  James.196 


193  "These  returns  [of  the  experiments  conducted  under  the  guidance  of  the 
American  Committee]  have  been  subjected  to  a  careful  mathematical  analysis  by 
Professors  Peirce  and  Pickering.  A  study  of  their  special  report  on  this  subject 
(Appendix  B.,  pp.  17-34)  shows  that  the  general  result  of  these  experiments  is,  at 
present,  unfavorable  to  thought-transference  as  a  power  belonging  to  mankind  in 
general."  (Commitee  on  Thought-Transference,  June  4,  1885,  Proceedings  Am.  S. 
P.R..  Series  I,  1  :8). 

194  Vide,  quotation  from  Thomas,  and  from  the  Journal  S.P.R.,  supra,  pp.  23, 
26;    cf.,  Thomas:    Thought  Transference,  pp.  180  ff. 

195  "Clearly,  most  persons  are  opaque  to  telepathic  impulses."  Lodge :  The 
attitude  of  science  to  the  unusual.  The  Nineteenth  Century  and  After,  February 
1909.  65  1215. 

ids  "Professor  Richet's  supposition  that  if  the  unexplained  thing  called  thought- 
transference  be  ever  real,  its  causes  must,  to  some  degree,  work  in  everybody  at 
all  times  (so  that  in  any  long  series  of  card-guessings,  for  example,  there  ought 
always  to  be  some  excess  of  right  answers  above  the  chance  number)  is,  I  am 
inclined  to  think,  not  very  well  substantiated.  Thought-transference  may  involve 
a  critical  point,  as  the  physicists  call  it,  which  is  passed  only  when  certain  psychic 
conditions  are  realized,  and  otherwise  not  reached  at  all — just  as  a  big  conflagra- 
tion will  break  out  at  a  certain  temperature,  below  which  no  conflagration  what- 
ever, big  or  little,  can  occur." — James:  Address  by  the  President.  Proceedings 
S.P.R.,  1896-97,  12:3-4. 


GUESSING  OF   PLAYING-CARDS  125 


SERIES  II.     REAGENTS  "SENSITIVE." 

Series  II  of  this  investigation  was  undertaken  for  the  purpose  of 
determining  by  like  methods  how  the  results  from  "psychics,"  or  per- 
sons reputed  to  be  "sensitive"  to  telepathic  or  clairvoyant  impressions, 
would  differ  from  those  obtained  from  normal  reagents.  The  experi- 
ments followed  the  same  general  procedure,  the  card  being  drawn  at 
random  from  a  constantly  reshuffled  pack  of  40,  and  its  treatment  being 
determined  by  the  numbers  cast  by  a  die.  During  the  critical  interval 
the  card  was  held  unknown  to  the  experimenter  if  an  even  number  had 
been  cast,  entertained  in  keen  visual  perception  upon  the  casting  of  die- 
spot  /,  in  keen  kinaesthetic  imagery  (of  the  vocal  organs)  upon  the 
casting  of  die-spot  J,  in  combined  visual  perception,  kinaesthetic  image- 
ry, and  auditory  imagery,  upon  the  casting  of  die-spot  5.  The  writer 
acted  as  experimenter  (agent)  (except  for  Sets  8  and  p)  and  recorded 
the  introspections  of  the  reagents  (percipients)  which  his  questions 
prompted ;    an  associate  recorded  the  judgments  or  guesses. 

The  Reagents. 

The  10  reagents  were  "psychics."  One  was  a  student,  who,  how- 
ever, has  had  remarkable  psychical  experiences.  The  others  lived  in 
cities  or  towns  within  a  hundred  miles  of  the  University.  Three  were 
private  persons  who  possessed  sensory  and  motor  automatisms  regarded 
as  psychical.  The  first  five  were  spiritistic  mediums.  The  work  of  the 
"10th  psychic"  was  in  reality  done  by  five  additional  spiritistic  mediums, 
four  of  whom  were  unable  to  complete  the  set  of  experiments,  and  an 
automatic  writer.  The  attitude  of  all  the  psychics  toward  the  telepathic 
hypothesis  was  favorable :  they  had  no  opinion  upon  it ;  they  had 
knowledge.  The  mediums  do  not  belong  to  the  class  of  clairvoyants 
who  establish  offices  in  the  business  district  of  the  city,  display  osten- 
tatiously a  certificate  of  ordination  into  an  hypothetical  spiritualistic 
church,  and  by  trick  and  device  prey  upon  the  public.  They  have  a 
sincere  and  an  abiding  faith  in  their  mediumship,  which  they  practice 
semi-professionally,  bringing  consolation  to  the  stricken,  peace  to  the 
troubled,  answers  to  the  questioning.  They  were  somewhat  more  than 
interested  in  a  decisive  method  of  portraying  some  of  the  real  facts  in 
their  experience,  especially  before  the  eyes  of  science,  and  gave  their 


126  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

time  and  effort  to  the  research  without  pay.197  It  should  be  noted  that 
they  are  mothers  of  families,  most  of  them  own  their  homes,  some  of 
them  are  known  in  the  literature  of  psychical  research,  several  of  them 
have  traveled  abroad  and  appeared  before  investigating  bodies,  and  at 
least  one  of  them  has  given  seances  before  courts  in  Europe.  One  of 
them  appeared  before  the  Seybert  Commission  of  the  University  of 
Pennsylvania. 

The  Results. 
The  gross  number  of  R  cases  (right  judgments)  is  given  in  Table 
XIII  (B)  ;198  the  deviations  of  the  sets,  after  reduction  to  sets  of  50, 
are  shown  in  Table  XIV  (B)  ; 199  and  the  deviation  of  the  per  cent  of 
R  cases,  for  the  series,  is  shown  in  Table  XVII.200  The  distribution  of 
R  cases  over  the  die-spots,  the  per  cent  of  R  cases,  and  die  deviation  of 
the  per  cent  of  R  cases  from  the  Probable  per  cent,  are  given  in 

TABLE  LI. 
Psychics.     Distribution  of   R  Cases  over  the  Die-Spots. 


Card  Not 

Imaged 

Card 

'maged 

Die- 

Die 

Spot  Card  Color 

No. 

Suit 

W 

Tot. 

Spot  Card  Color 

No. 

Suit 

W 

Tot. 

3          4 

77 

12 

42 

75 

156 

1 

8       100 

21 

46 

85 

195 

4          3 

75 

16 

47 

65 

150 

3 

8         78 

21 

41 

67 

154 

6         4 

80 

15 

41 

74 

164 

5 

2         99 

15 

51 

72 

181 

Tot.  11 

232 

43 

■30 

214 

470 

18       277 

57 

138 

224 

530 

Per  Cent  0 

{  R 

Cases. 

2          2.6 

494 

7-7 

26.9 

48.1 

1 

41       513 

10.8 

23.6 

43-6 

4          2.0 

50.0 

10.7 

31-3 

433 

3 

5-2        50.6 

13.6 

26.6 

43-5 

6          2.4 

48.8 

9-i 

25.0 

45-1 

5 

11       54-9 

8.3 

28.2 

39-8 

Tot.    2.34 

49-3 

9-1 

27.6 

455 

3-40     52.3 

10.8 

26.2 

42.3 

Deviation  from 

the  Probable  Per  Cent. 

2       +0.1 

-0.6 

-2.3 

+1.9 

+3-i 

1 

+1.6      +1.3 

+0.8 

-1.4 

-1.4 

4        -0.5 

0.0 

+0.7 

+6.3 

-i-7 

3 

-H2.7      +0.6 

+3-6 

+  1.6 

-i-5 

6        -0.1 

-1.2 

-0.9 

0.0 

+0.1 

5 

-1.4      +4.9 

-1.7 

+3-2 

-5-2 

Tot.*-o.i6 

-0.7 

-0-9 

+2.6 

-W-5 

+0.90    +2.3 

+0.8 

+1.0 

-2.7 

*This  deviation  of  the  per  cent  of  the  total  R  cases  from  the  probable  pet 
cent  corresponds  to  the  last  line  in  Table  XVII,  supra,  p.  65. 

19TThe  writer  wishes  to  acknowledge  here  the  courtesies  extended  to  him, 
both  by  these  "psychics"  and  by  the  members  of  the  California  Psychical  Research 
Society.  The  president  of  the  Society  performed  a  valuable  service  in  making 
appointments  and  in  recording  judgments  in  the  experimentation ;  and  the 
laboratory  of  the  Society  supplied  a  real  need. 

19»  Supra,  p.  62.  199  Supra,  p.  63.  20°  Supra,  p.  65. 


GUESSING  OF  PLAYING-CARDS  127 

The  deviations  from  the  probable  per  cent  in  this  table  do  not  in- 
dicate an  obvious  advantage  of  any  odd  number  of  die-spots  over  an- 
other, but  they  reveal  some  advantage  of  the  odd  over  the  even,  which 
is  somewhat  accentuated  if  we  segregate  the  professional  from  the  pri- 
vate psychics : 

Deviations  of  Per  Cent  of  R  Cases  from  the  Probable  Per  Cent. 
Card  Not  Imaged  Card  Imaged 

Card  Color  No.     Suit     W  Card  Color    No.     Suit      W 

Professional     -0.85     -0.2    -1.4    +0.5    -0.2        +2.17    +2.9    +1.7    +1.8    -3.0 

Private    +0.58    -1.1     -0.3    +5.0     +1.3        -0.89    +1.6    -0.1     +0.3    -2.5 

Should  this  advantage  prove  significant  we  shall  at  last  have  found 
thought-transference  among  the  professional  psychics. 

The  deviations  of  the  total  in  Table  LI  are  comparable  with  those 
given  in  Table  XVII,201  with  which  they  may  be  compared.  The  +0.90 
on  "Card"  is  less  than  half  the  corresponding  deviation  (+2.23)  of  the 
"Card  Not  Imaged"  experiments  of  the  7th  1000;  and  the  remaining 
deviations  are  each  exceeded  by  their  corresponding  deviations  in  the 
same  1000,  which  are  regarded  as  empirical  chance  deviations.  If  we 
compare  the  deviations  with  the  theoretical  limit  of  chance  deviation,  as 
given  for  sets  of  500  in  Table  XLI 202  (+2.96,  +9.5,  +5.7,  +8.2),  we  again 
find  them  much  exceeded. 

The  deviations  of  aggregated  results  of  the  professional  psychics 
must  be  estimated  in  terms  of  a  set  of  250,  for  comparison  with  em- 
pirical and  theoretical  chance  deviations.  If  we  find  the  deviations  of 
the  per  cent  of  R  cases  from  the  Probable  per  cent  for  two  consecutive 
groups  of  five  entries  in  Table  XIII,203  on  the  "Card  Not  Imaged"  side, 
say  sets  61-65,  and  66-jo,  we  shall  then  have  some  empirical  chance  de- 
viations comparable  to  the  deviations  of  the  professional  psychics ;  and 
if  we  add,  in  the  lower  line,  the  theoretical  limit  of  chance  deviation  in 
a  set  of  250  (from  Table  L),204  we  get  the  following  table: 

Deviations  in  Per  Cent. 

Card         Color  No.  Suit  W 

Sets  61-65 +2-54            +4-2  +2.4  +5-0  -3-4 

Sets  66-70  +1.93            +2-0  +3-6  +5-8  -1.0 

Professional  Psychics    +2.17            +2-9  +1-7  +1.8  -3.0 

Theoretical  Limit   ±4-15          ±13-3  ±80  ±11.5  +132 

201  Supra,  p.  65. 

202  Supra,  p.  89. 

203  Supra,  p.  60. 

204  Supra,  p.  122. 


128  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

In  each  rubric  is  the  psychics'  deviation  exceeded  by  empirical 
chance  deviation,  as  well  as  by  the  theoretical  limit  of  chance  deviation. 
Then,  if  we  turn  back  to  the  Psychics'  R  cases  (in  Table  XII Ja  [B],205 
where  they  are  reduced  to  sets  of  50)  and  compare  them  with  the  distri- 
bution of  chance  occurrences  of  R  cases  shown  in  Plates  V  ff.,206  we 
may  determine  just  how  likely  they  are  to  occur  by  chance.  In  the  fol- 
lowing table 

R  =  the  largest  number  of  R  cases  made  in  a  set  (of  50)  by  a  psychic. 

x  =  the  corresponding  deviation  from  the  probable  number. 

o  =  the  Standard  Deviation,  or  index  of  variability,  of  the  Distribution  of  R 
cases  in  the  "Card  Not  Imaged"  experiments  of  the  Normal  Reagents ;  it 
is  calculated  from  the  probable  number,  not  from  the  mean. 

x 

—  =  the  "Index  of  Abmodality"  (Vide,  Davenport,  op.  cit.,  p.  23). 

~2-x/a  =  the  number  of  cases  in  a  distribution  of  R  cases  resulting  from  chance 
which  lie  in  the  positive  side  of  the  distribution  farther  from  the  probable 
number  than  the  given  deviation  does.207  Total  equals  1000  cases. 
Px  =  Inductive  Probability,  from  the  Tables  XLIII-XLVT,208  Column  C,  Ex- 
actly x,  indicating  the  number  of  cases  in  100  that  x  was  exceeded  by,  in 
our  empirical  chance  series. 
P  =  Theoretical  Probability,209  showing  the  number  of  cases  in  1000  that  x 
may  be  expected  to  be  exceeded  by,  in  positive  chance  variations. 

TABLE  LII. 

The  Largest  Positive  Deviations  of  the  Professional  Psychics,  related  to  the  Nor- 
mal Distribution  of  R  Cases  calculated  from  empirical  and  theoretical  chance. 

K  x  o        ^      2^     P.         P 

Card    (Reagent   3) 4  +2.75  1.22  2.25  12.  2.  7. 

Color    (Reagent  5) 29  +4.0  4.1 1  0.90  184.  16.  129. 

Number    (Reagent  2) 8  +3.0  2.16  1.39  82.  5.  79. 

Suit    (Reagent  5) 18  +5.5  3.14  1.75  40.  6.  36. 

This  table  shows  that  the  largest  positive  deviation  in  number  of 
R  cases  on  the  "Card,"  (+2.75%),  made  by  Reagent  3,  in  a  set  of  50 
experiments,  may  be  expected  to  be  exceeded  by  chance  in  12  out  of  1000 


205  Appendix  A. 

206  Supra,  pp.  99  ff . 

207  These  values  are  derived  from  a  table  of  values  of  the  normal  probability 
integral  (Davenport,  op.  cit.,  pp.  119  ff.). 

208  Supra,  pp.  97  ff. 

209  Found  from  Davenport's  table  of  values  of  the  probability  integral  for 
x/a  (op.  cit.,  pp.  119  ff.),  the  theoretical  value  of  a  being:  0=  V/njn,  (Vide,  Yule: 
An  Introduction  to  the  Theory  of  Statistics,  1916,  p.  262.) 


GUESSING  OF   PLAYING-CARDS  129 

sets;  that  it  was  exceeded  twice  in  the  distribution  of  R  cases  in  ioo 
sets  of  "Card  Not  Imaged"  experiments  by  Normal  Reagents  ;210  and 
that,  theoretically,  it  may  be  expected  to  be  exceeded  by  chance  in  7  out 
of  1000  sets. 

It  is  evident  that  no  extra-normal  capacity  for  thought-transfer- 
ence, or  for  lucidity,  is  perceptible  in  the  results  of  the  individual  pro- 
fessional psychics. 

Remarks  made  occasionally  by  the  psychics  raised  the  question  of 
the  possibility  of  a  retarded  influence  which  would  show  in  the  coinci- 
dence not  of  the  card  and  judgment  of  a  given  experiment  but  of  the 
card  of  one  experiment  and  the  judgment  of  the  following  experiment 
or  the  second  following  experiment;  or  of  a  capacity  for  prescience 
which  would  be  shown  in  the  coincidence  of  the  card  of  a  given  experi- 
ment and  the  judgment  of  a  preceding  experiment.  (In  case  the 
"forces"  controlled  the  experimenter  in  drawing  the  card,  as  a  prom- 
inent psychic  suggested,  the  statistical  equivalent  of  prescience  would 
be  revealed  in  the  results.) 

These  hypotheses  can  now  be  tested.  R  cases  were  tabulated,  and 
the  following  deviations  from  the  probable  per  cent  found : 

TABLE   LIII. 

Psychics.     Coincidence   between  the  Card  Drawn  and  the   Preceding,   Succeeding, 
and  Second  Succeeding  Judgments.     Deviations  from  the  Probable  Per  Cent. 

Card  Not  Imaged  Card  Imaged 

Card  Color    No.    Suit  W  Card  Color    No.    Suit  W 

Preceding    Judgment..  +0.28    -2.7     +0.8    -0.8  +2.3  +0.88  +0.8    +1.6    +2.4  -0.7 

1st  Succeeding      "      ..  -0.67    -1.8     +0.3     -1.4  +1.5  -025  -3.5     -1.4    -1.6  +3.6 

2d            "                "      ..  +0.28    +1.8    -0.8    +4.1  -1.5  -C-6.2  -0-5     -2-5    +I.I  +1-3 

Coincidences—  First  5Q  Exper{ments.  Second  50  Experiments. 

Between    Guesses 0.30    +3.8    +3.0    +1.0    -5.6        -0.70    -0.6    -1.6    +0.2    +1.0 

Drawings  . .  .  +0.89    +0.2     +1.2     +0.2    +0.6        -0.42     +0.7    -1.3     +2.6    -0.5 
Limit  of  Chance  Deviation ±4-15  ^3-3     ±8.0  ±11.5  ±13-2 

The  size  of  the  deviations,  fairly  uniform  with  that  of  coincidences 
between  guesses,  or  between  drawings  of  different  sets,  and  in  no  case 
equal  to  as  much  as  half  the  limit  of  chance  deviation,  supports  no  other 
inference  than  that  chance  has  not  been  interfered  with  in  the  occur- 


2-10  Vide,   Table    XLIII    (p.   97),    column    C,   "Occurrence    of   Numbers,    Ex- 
actly x." 


130  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

rence  of  R  cases,  and,  consequently,  that  neither  tardy  telepathic  influ- 
ence nor  capacity  for  prescience  is  apparent  in  our  results. 

It  is  altogether  probable  that  the  results  of  the  psychics  differ  in 
no  essential  respect  from  those  of  normal  reagents  or  from  either  em- 
pirical or  theoretical  chance,  and  that  neither  telepathic  nor  clairvoyant 
capacity  has  been  revealed,  whether  such  capacity  is  regarded  as  shared 
by  the  psychics  in  general  or  as  possessed  by  an  individual,  especially 
sensitive,  psychic. 

Should  the  consistency  of  the  positive  deviations  of  the  professional 
psychics  over  the  probable  per  cents  of  R  cases  be  regarded  as  indica- 
tive of  a  small  degree  of  telepathic  capacity,  the  way  remains  open  for 
conclusive  proof:  a  continuation  of  experiments  in  sufficient  number 
to  lower  the  limit  of  chance  deviation  below  the  positive  deviations. 

Psychological  Analysis  of  Experience. 
The  Professional  Psychics. 

Reagent  I  gave  her  judgments  upon  three  kinds  of  impressions, 
one  Visual,  and  two  Auditory.  The  visual  consists  of  clear  imagery  of 
the  card  located  before  the  eyes  about  reading  distance ;  the  first  audi- 
tory consists  of  a  "voice  speaking  in  the  head."  This  voice  is  not  her 
own  but  that  of  a  young  girl  about  16  years  of  age,  and  the  psychic  is 

inclined  to  identify  it  as  that  of  "A ,"  211  a  "control"  who  has  been 

with  her,  in  psychic  manifestations,  about  four  and  a  half  years.  The 
second  auditory  impression  is  described  as  a  silent  voice,  which,  how- 
ever, is  not  accompanied  by  sensations  in  the  throat.  The  work  was 
done  in  the  natural  state  involving  the  same  processes  as  used  in  "circle" 
work.  She  also  works  in  trance,  getting  raps,  tipping,  automatic  voices, 
etc.  She  is  inclined  to  place  less  confidence  in  her  work  done  in  the 
normal  state. 

Reagent  3  received  visual  and  auditory  impressions  of  a  quite  vari- 
able nature.  Sometimes  she  saw  the  card  clearly ;  sometimes  luminous 
imagery  introduced  the  card  imagery,  as  "Saw  (clairvoyantly)  two 
bright  spots,  in  them  two  hearts"  (2:  i),212  or  the  light  appeared  in  the 
middle  of  the  card  in  blinding  intensity  so  that  at  first  the  spots  could 
not  be  clearly  seen  (10:2).  Sometimes  the  lights  were  all  that  were 
seen  (6:5).  After  1:6  she  described  in  detail  the  features  of  an  old 
man  who  was  holding  a  card;   and  after  4:  10  she  described  a  heavy-set, 


211  The  designations  of  these  controls  have  no  orthographical  relation  to  the 
real  names,  since  it  is  intended  that  the  psychics  remain  incognito. 

212  Second  series  of   10  experiments ;    first  experiment. 


GUESSING  OF  PLAYING-CARDS  131 

whiskered  man,  who  was  holding  the  experimenter's  hand  trying  to 
guide  it  in  drawing  the  card.  The  room,  she  said,  was  full  of  spirits, 
and  progress  with  the  cards  was  impeded.  The  auditory  impression  is 
like  a  whisper,  except  that  the  volume  is  great;  is  like  the  sound  of  the 
sea-shell.  This  voice  sometimes  immediately  after  a  judgment  was 
given  said  "wrong,"  and  the  psychic  was  inclined  to  think  that  the  voice 
was  right  but  could  not  herself  be  positive  (3:  1.  It  was  right  for  color 
and  suit).  Curiously  the  card  in  1  -.4  which  was  "known"  was  wholly 
missed,  and  the  next  one,  1 :  5,  which  drew  the  only  "pure  guess"  in  the 
100  experiments,  was  completely  hit.  The  psychic  has  lived  in  her  own 
home  for  years,  has  grandchildren,  and  has  held  sittings  weekly  for 
twenty  years.  She  is  intelligent,  and  frankly  enthusiastic  at  the  pros- 
pect of  finally  proving  something. 

Reagent  3  was  able  to  give  her  judgments  grades,  according  to  the 
vividness  of  the  impression,  but,  unfortunately,  many  were  low ;  and 
there  were  many  pure  guesses: 

A  B  C         D         PG 

1  14         16         13  56 

The  15  highly-graded  judgments  fall  upon  10  "Cards  Not  Imaged" 
and  5  "Cards  Imaged,"  and  yield  in  R  cases,  Card  o,  Color  60%,  Num- 
ber o,  Suit  33%,  and  Wrong  40%.  Card  imagery  was  uncertain  and 
capricious,  showing  colored  backs,  only  parts  of  the  face,  the  card  in 
motion,  blank  cards,  etc.,  consequently  many  judgments  were  satisfac- 
tory only  in  a  single  particular.  Gathering  such  judgments  together  we 
have  213 

1 : 2     Black,   spots   blurred,   card   moving B8S  3 

2:8    Pure  guess  except  as  to  color,   seemed  to  look  over  experimenter's 

shoulder    R2H  3 

3 :  1     Saw  spade,  but  the  spots  were  out  of  order B3S  6 

3:3     Red;    3  spots  on  left,  I   on  right R7H  5 

5  :  10  Only  "Spades,"  "3"  is  a  guess R6D  6 

6:7     "Clubs"    only    B2S  6 

9 : 4    Guess  on  number B7S  1 

10 :  10  Guessed    number    R7D  1 


213  To  interpret  first  line:  In  second  experiment  of  first  series  (of  10  experi- 
ments) the  card  drawn  was  Black,  the  Eight  of  Spades ;  it  was  held  in  Kin. 
imagery  (Die-spot  5)  ;  the  psychic's  guess  was  right  as  to  Color  (black-face  type)  ; 
her  experience  is  indicated   in   the  phrase   recorded  after  the  experiment-number. 


132  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

A  comparison  of  the  imagery  with  the  cards  drawn  and  with  the  die- 
spots  shows  four  hits  out  of  the  eight  cases,  and  the  complete  card 
guessed  was  not  imaged  by  the  experimenter. 

Impressions  came  mostly  in  visual  form ;  sometimes  in  impulse  to 
speak ;  twice  the  name  was  simply  "impressed,"  once  yielding  a  com- 
plete miss,  once  a  complete  hit ;  and  once  the  name  of  the  card  came 
as  a  whisper  (9:3,  B$S,  card  held  in  visual  impression  was  B4S). 
There  was  much  other  imagery,  chiefly  visual,  not  relating  to  the  cards : 
once  (9:9)  the  2-spot  face  of  the  die  was  seen  when  the  i-spot  had 
been  thrown;  other  imagery  was  a  side  view  of  a  life-size  statue,  sitting 
position  (2:6),  a  big  bronze  hinge  (2:9),  a  cabinet  15  inches  square 
of  dark  metal  and  encircled  with  a  one-half-inch  band  of  light  (2:10), 
a  white  disc  (3:5),  a  United  States  flag  at  half  mast  and  a  crowd  of 
people  (3:6),  the  figure  of  Lincoln  (3:6),  searchlight  and  ship  and  a 
wreath  of  white  roses  (3:7),  a  white  upright  panel,  5  feet  by  2  feet 
(3:9),  a  brass  jardiniere  and  a  papyrus  plant  (3:10),  a  blue  bird 
(4:2),  an  arch  (4:3),  a  mountain  waterfall  (5:2),  a  flood  with  furni- 
ture in  water  in  Ohio  (5:3),  ice  and  W.  T.  Stead  (8:9),  rugged 
ocean  shore  (8:10),  Prince  Albert  monument  (9:2),  Minnehaha  Falls 
frozen  (10:  6). 

The  psychic  is  recognized  by  those  having  discriminating  judgment 
in  such  matters  as  one  of  the  most  reliable  mediums  in  the  country,  and 
has  held  select  circles  for  many  years. 

Reagent    4   gave    judgments    from   visual   impressions;    her   guide 

"B "  shows  her  the  card ;    very  few  pure  guesses  were  made.     The 

work   of   the  experimenters   was   punctuated  by   communications    from 

"B- ",   who  longed   for  loftier  service.     This  interesting  personality 

informed  us  that  she  was  "American  born  East"  and  had  been  "in  spirit 
long  time."  To  show  us  her  power  over  space  she  paid  a  swift  visit  to 
the  moon  and  in  a  moment  reported  that  it  was  very  cold  there,  an  at- 
mosphere different  from  ours,  no  wind,  heavy-like  fog  but  clear ;  there 
were  great  crevices  and  a  huge  crater  in  which  she  saw  blue  mineral. 
She  impelled  her  medium,  upon  another  occasion,  to  give  the  following 
message :  "I  see  two  little  men,  one  signing  his  name  to  a  paper ;  an 
'S'  about  it ;  a  little  trouble."  Thinking,  perhaps,  that  some  service  of 
a  more  definite  nature  might  be  offered,  she  invited  the  experimenter  to 
ask  for  any  information  about  affairs  in  which  he  was  interested;  and 
in  reply  to  the  question  "Will  the  new  course  continue  next  year?"  she 
advised  to  "go  ahead,"  but  intimated  that  there  might  be  financial  trouble, 
a  dark-haired  man  was  jealous,  and  that  diplomacy  would  be  expedient. 


GUESSING  OF  PLAYING-CARDS  133 

She  then  suddenly  queried,  "Who  is  Ferguson,  light,  pretty  hands, 
dresses  well,  clean :  he  seems  to  have  some  connection  with  this  ques- 
tion." She  looked  ahead  some  eight  months  to  the  latter  part  of  August 
(1914)  and  saw  the  experimenter  in  outing  flannels  with  a  steamer  rug; 
saw  the  steamer ;  said  he  was  going  on  a  mission  to  Greece,  or  Egypt 
perhaps ;  that  there  was  a  party  being  made  up, — quite  a  number ;  that 
he  was  not  going  alone ;  that  it  was  not  advisable  for  him  to  be  much 
alone ;  he  gives  out  too  much  magnetism ;  he  needs  people  about  him, 
that  he  may  enjoy  their  magnetism.  She  was  emphatic  in  her  assertion 
that  it  does  not  make  any  difference  to  her  seeing  the  card  whether  the 
experimenter  has  it  in  his  mind  in  any  way,  and  that  telepathy  is  a  fact 
between  people,  between  people  and  spirits,  and  between  spirits. 
The  psychic  has  been  holding  circles  for  about  seven  years. 

Reagent  5  gave  her  judgments  from  visual  and  auditory  impres- 
sions. During  the  visual  impression  the  card  is  shown  to  her  by  her 
"forces,"  sometimes  in  bright  and  sometimes  in  dark  background.  For 
the  auditory  impression  a  "neuter"  voice,  like  intuition,  speaks  within 
her  head.  When  a  card  is  but  dimly  seen  the  voice  names  it;  often 
after  the  voice  has  named  a  card  it  is  shown  her  for  visual  verification. 
Sometimes  three  or  four  cards  are  shown  at  once  and  upon  her  asking 
"Which  one?"  one  is  either  shown  or  named.  The  auditory  impression 
is  preferred,  for  that  is  the  form  in  which  her  inspirational  lectures 
come.  There  were  no  pure  guesses.  Confidence  that  the  judgments 
were  right  was  variable,  but  was  higher,  as  a  whole,  on  the  second  and 
third  days'  work  (experiments  31-100).  A  very  complete  report  was 
given  of  the  form  of  imagery  of  the  impression,  permitting  tabulation, 
and  since  the  auditory  form  was  preferred  we  may  determine  whether 
the    preferred    impressions    (46   cases)    are    correlated    more    than    the 

others  with  R  cases  : 

Card  Color  No.  Suit 

Auditory,    Per   Cent 2.4  54  4.3  41 

Probable,       "         "    2.5  50  10  25 

Deviation    -0.1  +4  -5.7  +16 

The  deviation  on  Suit  alone  is  large,  and  over  half  of  it  comes  from  R 
cases  on  "Cards  Not  Imaged" ;  if  it  were  considered  significant,  its  sup- 
port for  telepathy  would  amount  to  +13,  and  for  clairvoyance  or  lucidity 
+20.  But  in  view  of  the  limit  of  chance  deviation,  for  so  short  a  series, 
being  much  larger  (+27),  and  of  the  moderate  deviation  of  the  per  cent 
of  R  cases  for  the  complete  set  (+10,  with  limit  of  chance  =  +18.4), 214 

21*  Vide,  Table  XLI,  set  of  100,  p.  89,  supra. 


134  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

no  positive  identification  of  a  cause  beyond  chance  can  be  made ;  per- 
haps a  case  for  further  experiment  may  be  admitted,  especially  since 
the  introspection  on  one  of  the  cards  completely  hit  (9:8)  was  "Beauti- 
ful light  around  it;  thought  I  was  looking;  first  with  light;  ray  seemed 
like  a  search-light"  (the  card  had  been  held  in  kinaesthetic  imagery  by 
the  experimenter),  although  the  judgment  on  the  only  other  card  com- 
pletely hit  was  delivered  before  signal,  while  the  experimenter  was  still 
shuffling  the  pack  and  had  not  yet  drawn  the  card. 

Other  "messages"  besides  judgments  of  cards  came:  at  the  end 
of  the  second  day's  work  we  were  informed  that  between  us  (the  ex- 
perimenter and  his  recorder),  with  a  hand  on  the  shoulder  of  each, 
stood  Andrew  Jackson  Davis  who  wished  to  speak  to  us.  He  said, 
"Boys,  this  is  not  the  highest  way ;  get  into  the  soul  of  things ;  greater 
things  than  this  shall  ye  do.  Both  of  you  are  in  the  soul  of  things  more 
than  you  understand.  This  is  the  A,  B,  C  you  are  working  on  now.  I 
see  it  is  very  good;  but  not  to  your  souls.  You  are  on  a  higher  rung 
than  this  will  ever  take  you."  The  psychic  said  that  the  force  was  so 
strong  about  her  that  she  could  not  get  back  to  the  cards,  and  continued  : 
"He  wants  you  to  take  up  the  higher  principles.  You  must  go  right 
into  the  center— it's  the  very  spring  of  life.  The  Mighty  Highest  gave 
different  principles  in  a  different  way.  I  will  give  you  some  of  the 
principles  of  life  and  tell  you  how  God  works.  He  works  through  per- 
fect law  and  order  and  you  got  to  come  into  perfect  law  and  order  to 
get  the  manifestations  you  are  seeking.  Just  as  the  artist  must  have  his 
tools  so  must  every  soul ;  it  must  come  into  possession  of  the  principles 
of  life  before  you  can  get  what  you  seek.  These  things — every  prob- 
lem in  the  universe — can  be  demonstrated  just  as  surely  as  a  mathemat- 
ical problem.  You  must  get  into  this  through  your  different  powers. 
The  principles  of  mathematics  will  work  out  every  problem  in  the  uni- 
verse. Fire,  air,  earth,  and  water  are  the  fundamental  principles ;  seven 
notes  of  music,  seven  colors,  etc.  Everything  must  commence  with  the 
inner  and  then  work  to  the  outer.  We  got  to  learn  the  which  and  the 
what  before  we  can  handle  these  forces.  Then  we  can  do  greater  things 
than  we  have  ever  done.  The  room  is  full  of  spirits,  very  learned,  very 
high  order."  2I5 

One  of  the  professional  activities  of  the  psychic  is  "psychometriz- 
ing," (she  is  an  enthusiastic  follower  of  Joseph  Rodes  Buchanan),  and 
after  the  set  of  one  hundred  experiments  had  been  completed  she  asked 


216  From  the  experimenter's  shorthand  notes,  essentially  verbatim. 


GUESSING  OF  PLAYING-CARDS  135 

that  she  might  try  an  experiment  so  modified  as  to  accommodate  it  to 
the  conditions  of  this  psychic  activity.  Consequently  a  card  was  drawn 
at  random  from  the  pack  and,  without  its  being  known  to  anyone,  placed 
in  the  card-box.  After  holding  the  box  in  her  hand  for  a  few  minutes, 
and  touching  with  her  fingers  the  card  within  (her  eyes  being  closed), 
she  "sensed"  the  Five  of  Spades.  It  was  the  Nine  of  Hearts,  as  she  im- 
mediately afterward  learned.  She  said  that  one  can  be  deceived  by 
spirits,  that  he  could  not  rely  upon  their  impressions  until  he  has  learned 
by  experience  that  they  are  true. 

This  psychic  is  sincere,  and  believes  that  the  impressions  are 
"given,"  but  she  is  naturally  somewhat  uneasy  because  of  the  possibility 
of  accurate  check  upon  her  impressions.  This  process,  however,  is  es- 
sential, if  the  pertinence  or  force  is  to  be  removed  from  the  agnostic's 
question :  "Has  she  probably  acquired  confidence  because  of  a  few  lucky 
hits,  being  shielded  by  the  nature  of  many  of  the  impressions  which 
precludes  accurate  check,  or  the  absence  of  a  systematic  check  of  such 
impressions  as  would  permit  it?"  She  has  had  automatic  writing,  but 
now  confines  herself  to  "psychometry"  and  the  delivery  of  inspirational 
lectures  on  the  Laws  of  Life.  She  has  been  actively  engaged  in  psychic 
work  for  forty  years. 

Reagent  io1,  a  veteran  in  the  psychic  world,  took  ten  experiments 
in  which  she  made  six  pure  guesses,  and  three  judgments,  two  from  an 
impulse  to  speak  (1:3,9)  a°d  one  from  an  "impression"  (1:8);  after 
two  respective  judgments  (1:8,9)  sne  remarked,  "No,  I'm  wrong." 
The  only  judgment  not  repudiated  was  right  in  color  only.  She  had 
other  impressions :  a  queer  feeling  in  her  back  and  the  back  of  her  head 
came  from  that  pack  of  cards ;  she  saw  an  old  lady,  very  sick,  "belong- 
ing" to  the  experimenter ;  also  a  canopy,  which  symbolizes  death ;  and 
at  11:47  AM-  sne  saw  a  telegram  on  its  wav  t0  tne  experimenter;  it 
had  reference  to  the  sick  woman.  She  saw  other  relatives  of  the  experi- 
menter who  were  in  spirit  life  and  had  been  attracted  to  the  laboratory, 

and  she  gave  their  names :    Mary  A.,  D ,  Carrie,  Mary,  John,  Mary 

Elizabeth  who  had  been  called  in  earth-life  Betsy,  etc.  The  pure 
guesses  on  the  cards  were  superior  in  R  cases,  although  below  the  prob- 
able number,  to  the  other  impressions,  for  the  latter  were  complete 
misses. 

Reagent  io2,  a  psychic  of  long  experience,  but  now  confining  her- 
self chiefly  to  inspirational  lecturing,  took  thirty  experiments.  Her  im- 
pressions   came    in    visual    and    auditory    imagery    and    "impressions." 


136  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

There  were  only  three  guesses,  but  they  were  as  successful  as  the  judg- 
ments ;   there  were  no  complete  hits. 

Reagent  ios,  an  automatic  writer,  took  ten  experiments.  His  im- 
pressions came  in  kinaesthetic  and  visual  imagery.  His  best  judgment 
(1:5)  was  right  in  color  and  suit.  The  only  complete  hit  was  a  guess. 
He  had  other  impressions :  discussed  at  some  length  a  page  missing 
from  a  book  and  three  people  supposed  to  be  involved  in  its  disappear- 
ance or  in  the  experimenter's  suspicion. 

Reagent  ioit  a  professional  psychic  for  four  years,  took  ten  ex- 
periments, and  all  were  pure  guesses.  She  had  much  visual  imagery, 
however:  sees  a  beautiful  star;  a  dark  cloud  underneath  (1:1);  a 
beautiful  golden  cross,  white  light  underneath  (1:2);  a  carriage 
(1:4);  blue  light  and  white  light;  red  picture  with  gold  in  it  (1:5); 
purple  light,  beautiful,  with  stars  (1:6);  boat  on  water;  all  men 
dressed  in  white,  teachers  of  high  order,  coming  towards  experimenter; 
have  lanterns  in  hands  (1:7)  ;  two  ladies  on  a  golden  road;  one  with 
a  beautiful  light  about  her  head,  pointing  her  finger  toward  the  experi- 
menter in  whom  she  seems  interested  (1 :  10). 

Reagent  I0S,  a  psychic  of  three  years'  experience,  took  twenty-three 
experiments.  Her  impressions  came  in  auditory  or  visual  imagery,  and 
she  gave  six  judgments  the  highest  grade  for  certainty;  two  were  com- 
plete misses,  three  had  suits  right,  and  one  the  number.  She  gave  ten 
second  grades,  one  of  these  being  the  only  complete  hit. 

Reagent  /o0,  a  psychic  of  a  few  years'  experience  and  now  very 
active,  took  the  remaining  17  experiments  of  the  tenth  set.  Her  im- 
pressions  came  in   auditory   form  in  her   right  ear,   recognized  as   the 

voice  of  her  control,  "E ."     The  judgments  in  all  characteristics  of 

the  card  were  much  below  the  probable  number. 

It  must  be  remarked  that  these  experiments  differ  considerably  from 
any  of  the  practices  to  which  the  professional  psychics  are  accustomed, 
and  that,  as  already  stated,  they  acted  as  reagents  in  their  alleged  normal 
state.  Several  of  them  have  stated  that  they  would  have  to  "sit  for  de- 
velopment" for  this  particular  sort  of  work  before  they  could  do  it  per- 
fectly. In  appraising  the  results,  therefore,  these  imperfections  of  the 
investigation  should  receive  consideration ;  but  they  should  not  exclude 
other  considerations  which  would  seem  sufficient  to  qualify  the  present 
series  of  experiments  as  a  fair  preliminary  survey  of  mediumistic  ca- 
pacity in  psychical,  as  contrasted  with  physical,  phenomena.  The  psy- 
chics, soon  after  a  sitting  began,  uniformly  entered  an  hypnoidal,  semi- 


GUESSING  OF  PLAYING-CARDS  137 

trance  state,  quite  comparable,  so  far  as  the  experimenter  could  judge, 
to  the  state  in  which  they  do  much  of  their  professional  work;  they 
often  recognized  impressions  as  coming  from  their  "forces"  or  "con- 
trols" and  were  almost  uniformly  expectant  of  statistical  justification 
for  their  faith  in  the  impressions,  although  they  made  no  distinction 
between  the  "Card  Not  Imaged"  and  the  "Card  Imaged"  conditions  of 
the  experiment ;  on  account  of  the  novelty  of  the  work  they  did  not 
expect  all  of  their  impressions  to  be  made  with  sufficient  skill  to  be 
perfect  throughout.  It  would  seem  that  the  conditions  of  experiment 
were  excellent,  in  spite  of  the  novelty  of  the  material,  for  engaging 
that  capacity  which  reports  in  "messages"  the  location  of  a  lost  article, 
the  richness  of  the  ore  in  a  distant  prospect,  or  the  state  of  the  sitter's 
liver,  since  here  the  report  was  made  on  the  color,  number,  and  form 
of  the  spots  on  a  card,  the  face  of  which  was  always  exposed  to  the 
free  air,  either  in  the  view  of  the  experimenter  or  under  the  inverted 
pack  held  in  his  hand.  The  sittings  occurred  on  three  or  four  days,  a 
week  apart,  amid  surroundings  similar  to  those  in  which  the  psychics 
conducted  their  customary  work.  If  telepathic  or  clairvoyant  processes 
occur  in  the  psychic's  activities,  in  a  state  short  of  the  deep  trance,  or 
of  a  moment  of  critical  experience  (suspected  by  James216  to  be  the 
essential  condition),  recognizable  traces  of  it  should  have  been  found, 
it  seems  reasonable  to  infer,  in  our  results. 

The  Private  Psychics. 

Reagent  6  received  impressions  in  both  auditory  and  visual  forms ; 
the  auditory  form  consisted  of  a  feminine  vocalized  voice  speaking  close 
behind  the  head  and  naming  the  card  at  once,  as,  "Eight  of  Diamonds" ; 
the  visual  form  presented  the  card,  usually  only  the  upper  left  corner  of 
it,  about  reading  distance  from  the  face,  as,  the  number  "8",  then  a  spot 
of  Diamonds.  The  judgments  were  graded  as  to  certainty,  and  there 
were  but  seven  guesses  in  the  set : 

B  C  PG 

Number 80  13  7 

Per  Cent  of  R  Cases  in  B  Judgments. 

Card     Color       No.  Suit 

3.8        41.3  7-5  23.8 

Deviation    +1.3        -8-7        -2.5  -1.2 

The    highly   graded   judgment    occurs    indifferently    in    the   "Card   Not 


216  Proceedings  S.P.R.,  1896-7,  12:4.     Vide,  quotation  in  footnote  196,  p.  124, 
supra. 


138  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

Imaged"  and  the  "Card  Imaged"  experiments,  and  it  is  not  more  reliable 
than  the  others.  No  relation  is  found  between  the  mode  of  imagery 
and  either  the  form  of  experiment  or  R  cases. 

The  reagent  has  sat  much  in  circles  for  development,  has  had  auto- 
matic writing  and  psychometry. 

Reagent  7  received  impressions  in  three  forms :  the  auditory  is  a 
voice  more  delicate  than  a  whisper,  located  at  the  tympanum  of  the  ear, 
is  very  distinct,  positive,  and  certain ;  kinesthetic  impulse  to  speak, 
perhaps  under  "Indian  control" ;  visual  imagery  of  card  in  natural  size, 
bright  color,  without  distinct  edges,  located  about  reading  distance  from 
the  face,  on  white  background.  The  impressions  are  bare  perceptions, 
having  no  meaning  in  card  evaluation.  Usually  the  imagery  was  in 
complementary  form,  not  coordinated :  as,  visual  for  color,  auditory 
for  number,  kinesthetic  for  suit.  The  condition  of  the  psychic  during 
experiment  is  a  semi-trance,  the  controlling  influence  repeatedly  mani- 
festing itself  in  automatisms  of  hands  and  body.  Certainty  and  vividness 
of  impression  are  pretty  constantly  correlated,  and  since  78  of  the  judg- 
ments were  given  the  highest  grade  the  deviation  of  per  cent  of  R  cases 
from  the  probable  per  cent  for  the  set 217  is  sufficient  to  show  no  relation 
between  certainty  and  R  cases.  The  three  complete  hits  occurred  in 
"Card  Not  Imaged"  experiments.  Two  impressions  were  especially 
remarked  because  of  special  conditions  (7:10  and  10:5)  ;  the  judgments 
were  both  right  in  color,  one  in  suit. 

The  reagent  has  sat  much  in  circles  for  development  and  recognizes 
control ;    is  reputed  to  have  healing  power. 

Reagent  8  was  a  student  who  has  had  remarkable  psychic  experi- 
ences ;  he  is  intelligent,  mature,  a  man  of  affairs,  and  a  firm  believer  in 
occult  phenomena.  He  is  naturally  introspective,  and  was  able  to  give 
a  very  good  account  of  his  mental  experience  during  the  experiments. 
Most  of  his  imagery  was  visual  (35  cases)  ;  it  was  located  usually  less 
than  a  meter  (sometimes  as  much  as  five  meters)  straight  ahead,  upon 
an  uneven,  foggy,  distant  background,  sometimes  luminous ;  it  begins 
to  show  at  about  mid-interval  and  develops  fairly  quickly;  if  effort  is 
necessary  for  its  development,  certainy  of  its  value  is  lowered ;  its 
"flashing  out"  is  more  certain.  His  auditory  imagery  (4  cases)  was 
not  in  a  recognized  voice,  and  had  musical  quality.  Apart  from  some 
kinesthetic  impressions  (8  cases)  the  rest  of  the  cases  were  devoid  of 
impressions.  Certainty  of  judgment  was  dependent  upon  visual  impres- 
sion, vividness,  distinctness,  quickness,  and  persistence  of  imagery,  sup- 

217  Cf.,  Table  XIV,   (S),  Reagent  7,  p.  63,  supra. 


GUESSING  OF  PLAYING-CARDS  139 

plemented  by  a  "hunch"  which  cannot  be  defined ;  it  is  merely  a  feeling 
of  certainty. 

The  grading  of  certainty  was  definite : 

B  C  D  PG 

Cases    6  n  31  52 

The  six  highly  graded  guesses  occurred  in  both  "Card  Not  Imaged" 
and  "Card  Imaged"  experiments,  and  fell  below  the  probable  number  in 
R  cases.  Although  the  reagent  did  not  consider  the  experimental  condi- 
tions best  for  searching  for  occult  phenomena,  he  candidly,  on  the  basis 
of  his  experience  in  this  set,  expected  an  excess  over  chance  in  R  cases, 
as  is  shown  by  the  following  deviations  from  the  probable  per  cent: 

Card  Color  No.  Suit 

Expected    +2.50  +20.  +25.  +20. 

Actual    +2.50  +3.  +2.  +7. 

Limit  of  chance  * +6.63  +21.  +13.  +18. 

Of  the  five  complete  hits,  four  occurred  in  "Card  Imaged"  experi- 
ments ;    two  were  given  the  lowest  grade  and  three  were  guesses. 

Upon  one  occasion  (6:5)  there  was  a  distinct  visual  image  of  a 
die,  six  spots  up,  two  on  the  nearer  side ;  the  two-spot  had  been  cast. 
Other  imagery  frequently  occurred:  outline  of  a  spot  of  clubs,  about 
three  times  the  size  of  a  card  (2:5);  a  series  of  regularly  arranged 
cards  moving  slowly  downward  (3:2)  ;  a  cardium  (fossil  shell)  (1 :8)  ; 
and  the  complaint  was  recorded:  "other  visual  images  interfering" 
(9:7,8). 

Reagent  9  was  the  same  "sensitive"  as  Reagent  8,  but  he  worked 
under  slightly  different  conditions.  His  earlier  set  of  100  experiments 
followed  accurately  the  procedure  observed  by  the  normal  reagents, 
even  to  the  recording  of  the  introspections.  In  this  set  he  hoped  to  be 
able  to  profit  by  experience  from  experiment  to  experiment  by  checking 
judgment  with  card  immediately  after  the  judgment  and  his  introspec- 
tion on  it  were  written.  This  change  of  procedure  was  not  tried  in  any 
other  series,  for  the  reason  that  the  mental  attitude  of  the  reagent  would 
certainly  pass  through  changes  as  fortune  was  seen  to  fluctuate.  The 
wealth  of  imagery,  and  the  introspective  powers,  of  this  reagent,  made  it 
seem  likely  that,  in  case  thought-transference  occasionally  occurs,  he 
would  be  able  to  identify  its  subjective  attributes  and  thus  revise  the 
scale  of  evaluation  for  certainty.  Even  if  he  should  fail  to  increase  R 
cases  to  a  large  number,  he  might,  at  least,  heap  them  up  on  his  certain 

*  From  Table  XLI,  set  of  100,  p.  89,  supra. 


140  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

judgments  and  thus  wrest  proof  from  an  apparently  chance  series. 
Consequently,  after  the  recording  of  judgment  and  introspection  in  each 
experiment,  the  experimenter  announced  the  name  of  the  card  drawn  and 
whether  it  had  been  a  "Card  Imaged"  or  a  "Card  Not  Imaged"  experi- 
ment. The  experimenter  was  a  post-graduate  student  of  Philosophy 
and  Mathematics,  had  been  successful  in  parlor  willing-games,  both  as 
guide  and  subject,  and  was  judged  capable  of  great  concentration  of 
mind.  He  was  also  a  close  friend  of  the  reagent's,  had  acted  as  experi- 
menter with  the  same  reagent  in  the  preceding  set,  and  helped  to  work 
out  the  detail  of  procedure  of  this  set,  hoping  to  make  it  a  crucial  test. 
It  was  agreed  that  the  reagent  should  choose  such  times  for  the  experi- 
ments as  he  deemed  most  favorable.  One  minute  was  allowed  for  the 
interval  of  impression,  which  made  the  work  arduous  for  both  experi- 
menter and  reagent.  The  experiments  ran  from  February  12  to  May  9, 
1914,  and  were  performed  on  eleven  separate  days ;  the  number  of  ex- 
periments performed  on  the  consecutive  days  of  experiment  being  3,  7, 
6,  7,  6,  8,  12,  6,  10,  19,  14. 

The  knowledge  of  wrong  cases  established  an  expectancy  for  con- 
tinued wrong  cases,  and,  as  a  whole,  the  grades  fell  lower  than  they 
were  in  the  preceding  set,  although  there  were  not  so  many  pure  guesses : 

A  B  C  D         PG 

Number  o  1  7  52  40 

If  we  inspect  the  eight  higher  grades  we  find  them  divided  evenly 
between  the  "Card  Not  Imaged"  and  the  "Card  Imaged"  experiments, 
and  below  the  probable  number  in  R  cases,  only  one  color  and  one  num- 
ber being  right ;  no  suit  right.  There  were  no  complete  hits  in  the 
whole  set. 

The  introspective  material  contributed  was  copious  and  excellent; 
samples  follow : 

Auditory  Impressions : 

Words  heard  soundlessly;  as  though  spoken  by  another,  but  not  heard. 
No  kinaesthetic  imagery  of  the  vocal  organs.  Heard  but  once  (color  only 
right).     (1:3). 

Heard  my  own  voice;  slight  impulse  to  form  words  with  tongue  (a 
miss).     (4:10). 

Visual  Impressions : 

Unusually  persistent ;    some  confusion  as  to  number ;    at  one  time  two 
hearts  being  uncertainly  visible,  one  above  the  other  (a  complete  miss).  (1 :4). 
Number  symbols  mostly;  3,  then  4,  then  6,  then  3  persisting.    Uncertain 
as  to  suit  (color  right).     (1:6). 


GUESSING  OF  PLAYING-CARDS  141 

Confused  number  of  symbols,  hard  to  decide  which;  first,  a  red  spot, 
then  a  diamond,  then  "V"  unmistakable,  but  fading  to  dull  spot  from  which, 
next,  radiated  four  lines  as  to  corners  of  card;  decided,  therefore,  on  5 
(wrong).     (2:1). 

No  sense  of  color;    form  of  diamond;    figure  3  later   (right  for  suit). 

(2:4). 

Geometric   figure,   a   hexagon,   more   distinct,   lines   in   exceedingly   dark 

red,  almost  black;    heart  inscribed,  very  faint,  in  black  outline;    heart  not  as 
persistent  as  outline;    points  in  black  (suit  right).     (3-7)- 

A  heart,  red,  no  number,  fading  quickly,  then  a  more  persistent  geomet- 
rical outline,  diamond-shaped,  red  (pale)  lines  in  black  (color  wrong).    (4:9)- 
6;    then  a  heart,  point  up,  quite  strong  (both  wrong).     (7:4)- 
Five   geometric   figures   in   succession,   evolution   of   a   spade    (wrong). 

(10:4). 

A  heart  broken  in  two  pieces;    (judged  2  of  hearts,  wrong).    (10:10). 

Kinesthetic  Impressions : 

Unmistakably  kinaesthetic— therefore  astonishing  (a  miss).     (2:5). 
Impulse  to  say  "four";    four  what?    "Why,  x,  of  course!"     Hunch  said 
hearts  (a  miss).     (9:7)- 

"Hunches" : 

Hunch  said  7  (wrong).     (6:4). 

Hunch  said  Clubs;   clubs  became  visible  (wrong).     (7:2). 

Hunch  said  Ace  of  Clubs  (wrong).     (8:9). 

"Impression" : 

Words  distinctly  formed  mentally,  as  though  spoken;  not  actually  audi- 
tory ;  no  decided  kina:sthetic  impulse ;  heard  inside  as  though  I  spoke  them 
(number  right).     (7-7)- 

Automatic  Writing: 

Tracing  of  part  of  outline,  unmistakably  spades  (right).     (10:2). 

There  was  other  imagery,  as  with  the  professional  psychics,  which 
did  not  relate  to  the  particular  experiment : 

Extraneous  Visual  Impressions : 

Words  written  on  a  black-board:  "blue,"  "paste,"  "book,"  "Bess"— quite 
disconnected.     ( 1 :  10) . 

Two  hands,  two  wrists,  small,  woman's;  but  strong,  tearing  a  deck  of 
cards  into  small  bits,  very  vigorously,  and  throwing  them  away.      (4:7)- 

Bunch  of  unrelated  geometric  and  astrological  symbols.      (5:10). 

"Ru— dolph;    Rudolfo  ;    Rou— en  ;    cy."     (7:8). 

Two  button-hooks  trying  to  hook  into  each  other;  also,  on  black-board, 
"Hogs."     (10:3). 

Three  silver  comets.     (10:6). 

"J19"  on  green  maple  leaf.     (10:7). 


142  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

Procedure  "with  knowledge"  induced  early  in  the  set  an  inhibition 
of  imagery:  "Find  I  must  vigorously  guard  against  visualizing  the  first 
vagrant  suggestion;  and  I  find  this  decidedly  inhibitive."  (1:9).  The 
interval  of  the  experiment  had  been  "Imageless,  strikingly  so!  (Un- 
usual in  my  experience!)." 

The  experience  of  the  experiments  justifies  our  regular  method. 
The  reagent  cannot  avoid  vexation  upon  learning  of  misses. 

The  results  of  this  set  make  it  pretty  clear  that  in  spite  of  the  best 
that  two  most  favorably  attuned  and  experienced  persons  in  psychic 
matters  could  do  toward  perfecting  the  conditions  for  eliciting  the  pro- 
cesses of  thought-transference  or  of  clairvoyance  (both  of  which  had 
been  several  times  most  signally  experienced  by  the  reagent),  the  statis- 
tical results  are  obstinately  negative,  and  the  successful  demonstration 
of  the  objective  existence  of  either  or  both  of  these  super-normal  capaci- 
ties is  likely  to  involve  subtle  difficulties. 

Conclusion. 

The  statistical  analysis  of  the  results  of  1000  experiments  with 
psychics  reveals  no  advantage  for  the  psychics  over  normal  reagents  as 
claimants  for  the  capacities  of  telepathy  or  clairvoyance.218  Although 
some  of  the  deviations,  either  because  of  their  consistency  219  or  because 
of  their  size,220  seem  at  first  glance  to  warrant  further  experiments  in 
search  for  some  cause  beyond  chance,  they  are  matched  by  chance  devia- 
tions, and  they  fall  considerably  below  the  limit  of  chance  deviation. 

The  inner  experience  of  awareness  of  the  card  (whether  telepathic 
or  clairvoyant  need  not  now  be  distinguished)  frequently  occurred  in  our 


218  This  conclusion  is,  so  far,  in  agreement  with  the  admittedly  incomplete 
experiments  with  Mrs.  Piper,  conducted  by  Professor  James,  who  has  recorded: 
"No  sign  of  thought-transference — as  tested  by  card  and  diagram  guessing — has 
been  found  in  her  [Mrs.  Piper],  either  in  the  hypnotic  [not  trance]  condition  just 
described,  or  immediately  after  it ;  although  her  'control'  in  the  medium-trance 
has  said  that  he  would  bring  it  about.  So  far  as  tried  (only  twice),  no  right 
guessing  of  cards  in  the  medium-trance.  No  clear  signs  of  thought-transference, 
as  tested  by  the  naming  of  cards,  during  the  waking  state."  (Proceedings  S.  P.  R.> 
1889-90,  6:654.)  In  England,  Phinuit,  Mrs.  Piper's  control,  was  given  a  brief  series 
of  tests  in  telling  how  many  fingers  were  being  held  up  by  a  person  in  the  same 
room,  but  concealed  behind  a  screen.  There  were  nine  successes  (in  the  first 
guesses)  out  of  29  experiments.  Professor  and  Mrs.  Sidgwick  observed  that  "his 
success,  however,  was  not  very  startling,  though  probably  beyond  what  chance 
would  produce."      (Ibid.,  p.  616). 

219  Cf.,  pp.  127  and  130,  supra. 

220  Cf.,  p.  133,  supra. 


GUESSING  OF  PLAYING-CARDS 


143 


experiments,  and  for  some  of  the  mediums  it  often  consisted  of  '  mes- 
sages" or  "impressions"   from  their  customary  "spirit  controls."    There 
seems  to  be  no  essential  difference  between  the  psychics  and  the  normal 
reagents  in  the  elements  or  forms  of  experience  which  contribute  cer- 
tainty to  the  judgment, — the  apparent  independence  of  the  impression 
from  the  mind's  voluntary  activity  being  the  best  mark  of  a  "certain" 
judgment.     With  the  psychic,  however,  freer  rein  is  given  these  sensory 
and  motor  automatisms;    impressions  come  with  greater  facility  and  in 
greater  variety,  more  prone  to  transcend  the  requirements  of  the  experi- 
ment.    Yet  the  inner  experience  of  super-normal  perception  is  no  more 
closely  correlated  either  with  any  single  element  under  control  in  the 
conduct  of  the  experiment  or  with  R  cases.     When  the  "impressions" 
fell  into  professional  form,  they  were  no  more  reliable  than  when  they 
pertained  to  the  cards :    e.  g.,  there  was  no  financial  interest  related  to 
the  course  to  be  continued  next  year,  nor  could  a  dark  man  have  been 
jealous  of  it;    the  mysterious  Ferguson  with  the  pretty  hands  has  not 
been   identified.     The  experimenter  did  not  enjoy   familiar  association 
with  a  steamer-rug  at  any  time  during  the  following  August  or  since, 
nor  did  he  board  a  steamer  upon  a  mission  to  the  land  of  Homer  or  of 
the  Pharaohs.221    Is  the  same  authority  equally  reliable  in  her  assertion 
that  telepathy  between  people,  between  spirits  and  people,  and  between 
spirits  is  a  fact  ?    The  telegram  on  its  way  to  the  experimenter,  bearing 
sad  news  of  an  aged  lady,  very  sick,   "belonging  to"  him,  graciously 
refrained  from  materializing;    the  names  of  his  relatives  in  spirit  land 
who  were  attracted  to  the  laboratory — each  and  all  failed  to  touch  any 
chord  of  memory.222    The  absence  of  a  missing  page  from  a  book  still 
remains  undiscovered  and  the  three  persons  involved  in  either  the  mis- 
demeanor or  the  experimenter's  suspicion  have  been  neither  apprehended 
nor  identified.2220 

Without  wishing  to  minimize  the  value  of  further  experimentation 
with  psychics  in  the  "normal"  state  (for  an  accumulation  of  more  data 
is  desirable  both  for  testing  for  super-normal  perception  and  for  psycho- 
logical study  of  the  psychic's  mental  processes)  the  writer  is  inclined  to 
regard  trance  phenomena  or  hypnotic  phenomena  brought  into  relation 
to  this  investigation  as  the  next  logical  step. 


221  Cf.,  supra,  pp.  132  f. 

222  Cf.,  supra,  p.  135. 
2220  Cf.,  supra,  p.  136. 


144  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 


III.  "THE  FEELING  OF  BEING  STARED  AT." 

"The  Feeling  of  Being  Stared  At"  implies  a  telepathic  process —  a 
becoming  aware  in  a  super-oormalway  of  a  specific  voluntary  action  of 
another  person — and  the  results  of  its  investigation  may  properly  be  in- 
cluded in  Part  I. 

The  belief  in  this  phenomenon  is  probably  an  old  one ;  and  that  it  is 
shared  by  modern  university  students  who  come  from  all  over  this  coun- 
try, and  from  other  countries  as  well,  will  presently  be  shown.  Professor 
Simon  Newcomb,  the  first  president  of  the  old  American  Society  for 
Psychical  Research,  has  said,223  in  an  article  which  sums  up  his  experi- 
ence of  fifty  years  in  relation  to  psychical  research,  that  from  childhood 
be  believed  in  telepathy  through  emotion,  and  in  the  power  of  causing  any 
one  sitting  at  a  distance  in  front  of  one  to  turn  and  look  around. 

So  far  as  the  writer  knows,  no  systematic  experimentation  has  been 
undertaken,  in  psychical  research,  with  a  view  of  testing  either  "The 
Feeling  of  Being  Stared  At"  or  the  power  to  cause  a  person  to  turn  and 
look  around.  A  few  cases  of  the  power  to  impress  a  percipient  with 
one's  personal  presence,  by  willing  it,  however,  have  been  recorded.224 

The  investigation  recorded  below  was  made  for  the  purpose  of  test- 
ing the  "feeling,"  and  utilizing  at  the  same  time  whatever  "willing- 
power"  the  experimenter  (agent)  could  exercise. 

The  Prevalence  of  Belief  among  University  Students. 

For  five  years  the  students  in  two  of  the  larger  classes  in  psychology 
(Mental  Hygiene  and  General  Psychology)  have  handed  in  replies  to  a 
Questionnaire  in  which  the  first  and  seventh  questions  were : 

/.  Do  you  ever  feel  that  you  are  being  stared  at,  with  the  conviction  that 
your  feeling  can  be  relied  upon? 

7.  Have  you  found  that  you  could  cause  a  person  sitting  in  front  of  you  in  an 
audience  to  turn  around,  by  "willing"  it? 


223  Newcomb:     Modern  occultism.     Nineteenth   Century  and  After,  January 
1009,  65: 127. 

22*  Cf.,  Journal  S.  P.  R.,  1887-88,  3 :  307-8 ;    1889-90,  4 :  323-6. 


THE  FEELING  OF  BEING  STARED  AT 


145 


The  following  table  gives  the  results :  the  class,  the  year  of  the  class, 
the  number  of  men  and  women  respectively  who  handed  in  replies,  and 
the  per  cent  of  them  who  answered  both  questions  respectively  in  the  af- 
firmative. 

TABLE  LIV. 

Per  Cent  of  Affirmative   Replies  to  Questionnaire   Questions   /   and  7. 

Mental  Hygiene.  General  Psychology. 


Year 


1912-13 


1913-14 


I9I4-IS 


1915-16 


1916-17 


Sex 

Men 
Women 

Men 
Women 

Men 
Women 

Men 
Women 

Men 
Women 


Totals 


•    Men 
Women 
Men  and  Women 

Grand  Totals 


No. 


44 

65 

55 

62 
62 

87- 

44 

27 
23 

292 
228 
520 


% 
/ 

86 
86 

80 
96 

69 


77 
89 

78 
87 

80 
90 
83 


'Yes" 

7 

55 
88 

68 

85 

53 
82 

56 
59 

44 
57 

58 
77 
66 


r 

1 

No. 

%  ' 

Yes" 

/ 

7 

68 

60 

44 

78 

74 

40 

61 

80 

50 

77 

91 

80 

86 

49 

26 

40 

48 

33 

108 

65 

57 

7i 

80 

66 

122 

83 

62 

55 

89 

82 

445 

68 

50 

321 

79 

62 

766 

73 

55 

737 

72 

53 

549 

84- 

68 

1286 

77 

59 

Men 

Women 

Men  and  Women 

As  a  whole,  77%  of  1286  young  men  and  women,  who  have  come 
from  all  corners  of  the  earth  and  who  were  following  subjects  in  all  de- 
partments in  the  University,  affirmed  that  they  have  experienced  "The 
Feeling  of  Being  Stared  At"  and  that  they  regarded  the  feeling  as  more 
or  less  reliable.  Many  of  these  students  related  instances  of  proof,  such 
as  catching  the  starer,  or  hearing  his  performance  commented  upon  by 
friends ;  and  from  the  beginning  of  the  questionnaire  investigation  some 
of  the  adherents  to  the  belief,  usually  strong  partisans  of  the  hypothesis 
of  "Mental  Telepathy,"  expressed  their  willingness  to  put  the  matter  to 
the  test.226 


225  The  belief  in  this  super-normal  capacity  was  found  by  Professor  Titchener 
to  be  common  among  his  junior  students  in  Psychology  at  Cornell  some  years  ago, 


146  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 


I.     THE  REAGENT  REQUIRED  TO  JUDGE  "YES"  OR  "NO." 

During  the  year  1912-13,  1000  experiments  226  were  performed  by  an 
aggregate  of  10  reagents,  each  of  whom  made  100  judgments. 

The  reagents,  consisting  of  one  man  and  nine  women,  were  selected, 
from  the  Class  in  General  Psychology,  on  account  of  their  faith  in  the 
belief.  The  five  students  who  acted  as  experimenters  for  Sets  VI-X 
were  chosen  from  the  same  class  because  of  their  affirmative  replies  to 
both  questions  /  and  7  in  the  Questionnaire.  (The  writer  acted  as  ex- 
perimenter in  Sets  I-V.) 

During  the  critical  interval  the  reagent  sat  in  a  writing-leaf  chair 
with  her  eyes  closed  and  shaded  with  her  right  hand,  her  elbow  resting 
on  the  leaf  of  the  chair.  After  the  interval  she  gave  a  judgment  "yes" 
or  "no','  according  to  her  belief  as  to  whether  she  had  been  stared  at ; 
recorded  introspections  indicating  whether  the  state  of  her  mind  was 
favorable,  and  describing  the  content  of  consciousness  upon  which  she 
based  her  judgment;  and  recorded  a  grade  of  certainty  for  her  judg- 
ment. 

The  experimenter  sat  behind  her,  manipulated  a  dice-box  by  which 
he  governed  the  nature  of  the  experiment,  tapped  once  with  his  pencil  to 
signal  the  beginning  of  the  critical  interval,  stared  hard  at  the  back  of 
the  reagent's  head,  neck,  and  shoulders  if  an  odd  number  had  been  cast 
by  the  die,  or  closed  his  eyes  and  mused  upon  a  favorite  landscape  if  an 

and  he  reported  in  Science  (1898,  8:895-7)  that  experiments  in  the  laboratory 
proved  the  belief  to  be  groundless. 

Belief  in  the  efficacy  of  "staring"  has  been  remarked  by  others;  e.  g.,  Hiram 
M.  Stanley  says,  "Some  say  that  they  are  able  to  make  one  sitting  in  front  turn  the 
head  ...  by  a  steady  fixed  gaze,"  and  he  quoted  from  p.  198  of  Mr.  Bell's 
"Tangweera" :  "  'Presently  I  felt  as  if  someone  was  looking  at  me,  and,  raising 
my  head,  saw  a  large  puma  standing  ten  yards  off.' "  He  regarded  the  belief  as  a 
manifest  absurdity,  but,  considering  that  investigation  has  a  practical  value  in  ex- 
ploding a  common  error,  he  put  it  to  the  test  by  a  different  method  from  that 
described  in  these  pages:  "I  asked  a  young  man  who  is  very  confident  of  his 
powers,  to  stand,  unknown  to  reagent  A,  behind  a  book-case,  and  look  through  a 
carefully  concealed  peep-hole.  I  gave  him  the  best  opportunity,  placing  A  about 
four  feet  from  the  hole  and  directly  facing  him,  and  I  engaged  A  in  mechanical 
writing.  To  the  young  man's  confessed  disgust  and  irritation  he  was  unable  to 
disturb  A.  My  few  experiments  were  negative  in  results."  (Power  of  the  eye. 
Science,  1900,  12:73). 

226  A  brief  report  of  these  experiments  was  published  in  the  American  Journal 
of  Psychology,  1913,  24:570-5. 


THE  FEELING  OF  BEING  STARED  AT 


147 


even  number  had  been  cast,  tapped  twice  to  signal  the  close  of  the  critical 
interval,  and  recorded  in  a  ruled  form  the  die  number  and  the  reagent's 
judgment.  The  staring  was  concentrated  and  was  accompanied  by  a  set 
of  "will"  that  the  reagent  should  "feel"  it.  The  critical  interval  was  20 
seconds  for  the  first  five  sets,  and  15  seconds  for  the  remaining  sets. 
Experiments  at  the  beginning  of  the  sets  usually  occupied  about  ten 
minutes  each,  but  after  the  procedure  became  familiar  and  a  critical  atti- 
tude was  assured  they  succeeded  each  other  at  a  higher  rate,  never  faster 
than  one  a  minute.  From  three  to  four  days,  a  week  apart,  were  usually 
required  to  complete  a  set. 

Results.227 
The  following  table  gives  the  results  for  both  groups  of  reagents : 


TABLE  LV. 

Total  and  Right  Cases  in  Staring  Experiments. 

Not  Staring                                   Staring  Total 

Reagent                     Total             Right                      Total              Right  Right 

/ 51                   28                          49                   22  50 

// 45                   25                          55                   26  51 

///     62                   23                          38                   20  43 

IV S3                   24                          47                   25  49 

V 51                   28                          49                   21  55 

Avg 52.4                25.6                       47.6                24.0  49.6 

VI 45                   23                          55                   33  56 

VII 56                    21                            44                    23  44 

VIII 48                   25                          52                   26  51 

IX 55                   26                          45                   24  50 

X 52                   22                          48                   31  53 

Avg 51-2                23.4                       48.8                27.4  50.8 

Grand  Avg.    . . .       51.8                24.5                       48.2                25.7  50.2 

Of  the  1000  guesses,  50.2%  were  right,   (PE.,   1.78:  MV.,  3. 10)  ; 

47.3%  of  the  guesses  when  the  experimenter  was  "Not  Staring,"  and 

53-3%  °f  tne  guesses  when  he  was  "Staring,"  were  right.  The  die-spots 
came  even  51.8%  of  the  1000  throws,  conditioning  this  per  cent  of 
"blank"  or  "control"  experiments. 

227  This  discussion  of  our  results  is  quoted  with  but  slight  revision  from  the 
report  in  the  American  Journal  of  Psychology   (he.  cit.). 


14g  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

Since  six  of  the  reagents  guessed  "yes"  in  excess  of  "no"  (///,  18 
times;  IV,  8:  VI,  10;  VII,  16;  IX,  6;  and  X,  22),  while  but  three 
guessed  "no"  in  excess  of  "yes"  {I,  io;  //,  8;  VIII,  2),  resulting  in  a 
general  average  of  6  "yes"  guesses  per  100  in  excess  of  the  "no"  guesses, 
the  excess  of  53.3%  Right  guesses  "when  the  experimenter  stared"  over 
the  47.3%  of  Right  guesses  "when  the  experimenter  did  not  stare,"  is 
without  significance ;  if  half  of  the  excess  of  "yes"  guesses  is  deducted 
from  the  "Staring"  experiments,  the  53.3%  is  reduced  to  50.2%.  The 
total  Right  guesses  for  each  reagent  is  the  significant  figure.  The  limits 
are  43-56  and  deviate  from  probability  about  equally ;  this  size  of  devia- 
tion could  be  expected  by  chance  322  times  in  1000. 

Considering  that  theoretical  probability  is  50%  ;  that  our  result  of 
50.2%  falls  between  it  and  the  experimental  probability  found  by  Quet- 
elet 228  in  5460  drawings  from  equal  numbers  of  white  and  black  balls 
(white  balls  50.48%)  ;  and  that  an  experimental  series  of  our  own  (fre- 
quency of  odd  numbers  on  the  dice)  for  the  same  number  of  experiments 
gives  51.8%;  we  may  conclude  that  no  cause  besides  chance  has  been 
found  working  toward  Right  cases. 

There  are  other  ways  in  which  the  results  may  be  distributed  to  show 
that  there  is  no  conspicuous  "bunching"  of  Right  cases  in  any  of  the 
rubrics,  and  that  therefore  the  consistency  of  mutual  support  adds  to  the 
certainty  that  there  has  been  no  influence  beyond  chance  operative  toward 
Right  guesses. 

In  some  of  the  experiments,  the  distance  between  the  experimenter 
and  reagent  was  varied  for  the  purpose  of  finding  the  influence  of  dis- 
tance upon  any  factor  above  chance  that  might  be  found  to  be  working 
for  Right  guesses.  The  following  table  gives  the  gross  averages  and  the 
per  cents  of  Right  guesses  for  the  various  distances  in  meters. 

TABLE  LVI. 
First  Group. 

Distance  in  meters 12  3  4-6 

Number   of    Guesses 80  140  80  60 

Per  Cent  Right 46.3  49.3  55  45 

Second   Group. 

Distance  in  meters 2  4 

Number  of  Guesses 160  100 

Per  Cent  Right 45  53 

228  Quetelet :     Lettres  sur  la  Theorie  des  Probability,  p.  57. 


6 

10 

50 

80 

54 

51-3 

6 

20 

50 

THE  FEELING  OF  BEING  STARED  AT  149 

But,  as  Venn  says,229  anything  may  happen  in  a  chance  series,  and  it 
may  be  charged  that  all  the  guesses  given  with  a  low  degree  of  certainty 
(a  feeling  that  the  guess  stands  a  small  chance  of  being  right),  by  a 
freak  of  chance,  may  have  run  greatly  under  the  probability-figure  for 
Right  guesses,  and  may  thus  have  counteracted  in  our  final  per  cent  for 
each  reagent  the  influence  of  a  force  working  for  Right  guesses  to  be 
found  in  those  guesses  given  with  a  stronger  feeling  of  certainty. 

A  tabulation  of  Right  guesses  under  their  correlated  grade  of  cer- 
tainty (recorded  in  the  introspections),  however,  shows  no  significant 
advantage  on  the  part  of  any  reagent  for  his  more  certain  over  his  less 
certain  guesses.  The  following  table  shows  a  total  of  such  values  from 
reagents  whose  grading  was  definite. 

TABLE  LVII. 

Guesses  Given  with  Varying  Grades  of  Certainty. 

"Pure 

Grades ABC                D        Guess"  Total 

Number  of  Guesses IS            332           264              61            36  7o8 

Right    10            166            129              33           22  360 

Per  Cent   Right 67             50             48.8            54           61  5°.8 

It  seems  pretty  clear  that,  if  there  is  a  capacity  to  be  aware  of  being 
stared  at,  it  is  not,  as  Richet  thought  of  telepathic  phenomena,  shared  to 
a  slight  extent  by  normal  persons,  but  must  be  confined,  as  James  sus- 
pected,230 to  subjects  whose  sensibilities  have  been  augmented  beyond  a 
"critical  point"  through  hypnosis  or  other  abnormal  conditions. 

229  "There  can  be  no  doubt  that,  however  unlikely  an  event  may  be,  if  ...  we 
keep  on  trying  long  enough,  we  shall  meet  with  such  an  event  at  last.  If  we  toss 
up  a  pair  of  dice  a  few  times  we  shall  get  doublets ;  if  we  try  longer  with  three  we 
shall  get  triplets,  and  so  on.  However  unusual  the  event  may  be,  even  were  it 
sixes  a  thousand  times  running,  it  will  come  some  time  or  other  if  we  have  only 
patience  and  vitality  enough.  Now,  apply  this  result  to  the  letters  of  the  alphabet. 
Suppose  that  one  letter  at  a  time  is  drawn  from  a  bag  which  contains  them  all,  and 
is  then  replaced.  If  the  letters  were  written  down  one  after  another  as  they  oc- 
curred, it  would  commonly  be  expected  that  they  would  be  found  to  make  mere 
nonsense,  and  would  never  arrange  themselves  into  the  words  of  any  language 
known  to  men.  No  more  they  would  in  general,  but  it  is  a  commonly  accepted 
result  of  the  theory,  and  one  which  we  may  assume  the  reader  to  be  ready  to 
admit  without  further  discussion,  that,  if  the  process  were  continued  long  enough, 
words  making  sense  would  appear;  nay  more,  that  any  book  we  choose  to  men- 
tion,—Milton's  'Paradise  Lost'  or  the  plays  of  Shakespeare,  for  example, — would  be 
produced  in  this  way  at  last."— Venn  :  The  Logic  of  Chance,  3d  ed.,  London; 
Macmillan,  1888,  pp.  352-3. 

230 Proceedings S. P.  R.,  1896-7,  12:4;  also  cf.,  footnote  196,  on  page  124,  supra. 


150  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

Our  reagents  who  had  more  or  less  confidence  in  their  ability  did 
not  under  the  favoring  conditions  of  our  experimentation  prove  their 
power.  Their  belief  must  be  largely  based  upon  those  subjective  factors 
which  enabled  them  to  deliver  some  guesses  with  a  strong  feeling  of  cer- 
tainty, and  partly  perhaps  upon  undue  consideration  of  cases  in  which 
they  have  "verified"  their  feeling  by  catching  the  starer. 

Qualitative  Results. 

Introspections  show  in  what  manner  guesses  are  determined,  and 
reveal  the  factors  of  experience  that  contribute  to  the  guesses  a  feeling 
of  varying  grades  of  certainty  that  the  guess  is  right. 

Certainty  is  contributed  to  the  guess  by  ( I )  some  attribute  or  con- 
tent of  the  imagery,  (2)  kinaesthetic  sensations  or  images,  or  (3)  infer- 
ences from  sound  sensations  resulting  from  the  experimenter's  manipula- 
tion of  apparatus,  etc.,  or  from  other  subjective  processes. 

( j)  When  the  content  of  visual  imagery  involved  the  attitude  of  the 
experimenter,  it  determined  the  guess  according  to  whether  the  experi- 
menter was  looking  straight  ahead  or  looking  away.  When  this  imagery 
was  vivid,  or  if  it  appeared  with  facility  (liveliness)  and  at  the  beginning 
of  the  period,  or  was  persistent  or  recurrent,  the  guess  was  given  with  a 
feeling  of  greater  certainty.  (Reagent  /  said,  "When  the  direction  of  the 
look  is  seen  from  the  face  only,  I  give  the  guess  Grade  C;  if  from  the 
eyes,  Grade  B  or  A.") 

The  visual  imagery  may  be  weak,  and  when  it  appears  at  all  be 
accepted  as  a  sign  of  being  stared  at.  For  Reagent  //  visual  imagery  of 
the  experimenter  or  of  a  school-room,  in  which  she  first  experienced 
vividly  the  feeling  of  being  stared  at,  yielded  a  "yes"  guess. 

Sometimes  the  content  of  the  visual  imagery  was  probably  suggested 
by  auditory  impressions  of  the  experimenter's  movements  when  the  latter 
were  not  pronounced  enough  to  be  singled  out  for  "inferences"  as  treated 
in  Section  (j). 

Those  who  depended  largely  upon  visual  imagery  were  Reagents  /, 
IV,  V,  VIII,  IX,  and  X. 

(2)  Some  reagents  were  much  occupied  with  kinaesthetic  impres- 
sions during  the  interval.  Thus  for  reagents  ///,  VII,  and  VIII,  the 
most  characteristic  cue  for  a  highly  graded  guess  was  an  almost  irresist- 
ible impulse  to  turn  around,  or  a  tension  of  muscles  in  the  neck  and 
shoulders;  for  X  it  was  a  kinaesthetic  (partly  thermal)  sensation  in  the 
right  temple ;    sometimes  the  kinaesthetic  impressions  were  not  localized, 


THE  FEELING  OF  BEING  STARED  AT  151 

but  were  indicated  by  "a  feeling  of  restlessness" ;  Reagent  VIII  also 
speaks  of  a  "feeling  of  discomfort"  with  a  "desire  to  turn." 

The  imagery  of  Reagent  V  involved  a  visual  or  at  least  a  spatial  ele- 
ment consisting  of  an  imaged  straight  line,  or  beam,  from  the  experi- 
menter's eyes  to  the  back  of  her  head ;  and  a  marked  kinaesthetic  im- 
pression, leading  to  "yes"  guesses  given  with  a  high  degree  of  certainty, 
was  tension  of  the  eye-muscles  toward  this  line.  "Attention  and  eyes 
drawn  toward  line,"  was  a  frequent  introspection  for  guesses  given 
with  a  higher  grade  of  certainty.  She  also  has  clear  visual  imagery  of 
the  experimenter  either  accompanying  this  kinaesthetic  impression,  and 
including  the  "line,"  or  of  the  experimenter's  face  turned  away.  The 
visual  element  gave  way,  in  the  course  of  her  experimentation,  to  the 
kinaesthetic,  as  a  guide  to  the  more  certain  guesses.  Reagent  VII  also 
mentions  this  "line"  in  her  visual  imagery  of  the  experimenter,  and 
speaks  of  a  "feeling  of  connection." 

The  kinaesthetic  impressions  involving  restlessness,  desire  to  turn, 
strain  in  the  neck-muscles  and  in  the  eyes,  were  shared  by  other  re- 
agents who  had  other  modes  of  imagery  from  which  they  made  their 
guesses;  as  V,  VIII,  IX. 

More  subtle  kinaesthetic  imagery  was  sometimes  evidently  of  in- 
fluence in  determining  the  guess.  Reagent  IX  "felt  like  answering  a 
call  [of  her  name]  ;"  and  VIII  recorded  a  "feeling  of  being  alone," 
which  was  a  positive  determinant  for  a  "no"  guess;  and  of  a  "feeling 
of  being  criticised,"  or  a  "feeling  of  nearness  to  the  experimenter,"  both 
of  which  yielded  "yes"  guesses. 

(5)  Inferences  were  sometimes  drawn  by  the  reagent  from  sounds 
of  the  experimenter's  manipulation  of  apparatus  or  his  conduct  of  the 
experiment.  After  shaking  the  dice-box,  the  experimenter  waited  until 
the  second-hand  was  coincident  with  a  five-second  dial-mark  before  he 
tapped.  Reagent  /  noticed  variability  in  the  length  of  this  interval,  and 
inferred  that  longer  intervals  were  caused  by  preparing  "to  stare";  and 
he  confidently  gave  for  these  cases  "yes"  guesses ;  he  sought  for  a  basis 
for  inference  when  at  a  point  in  his  series  impressions  failed  to  come 
during  the  interval.  Other  reagents  noted  in  the  pre-period  a  sound  of 
movement  from  the  rustling  of  clothing,  and  inferred  that  the  head  was 
being  raised  "to  stare" ;  when  such  impressions  came  within  the  inter- 
val, the  reagent  inferred  that  the  experimenter  was  not  looking.  Re- 
agent VIII  "knew  from  her  movements"  the  experimenter  was  not  star- 
ing, and  also  inferred  that  "harder  taps"  were  signals  for  a  "yes"  guess. 

Even  when  such  impressions  are  not  used  in  "inferences"  they  may 


152  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

conceivably  influence  the  guessing  by  being  taken  advantage  of  subcon- 
sciously. It  is  impossible  for  the  experimenter  to  maintain  perfect  uni- 
formity in  his  conduct  of  the  experiment,  which  involves,  among  other 
things,  length  of  the  various  intervals,  breathing,  manipulation  of  the 
dice-box,  intensity  and  accent  in  tapping,  slight  bodily  movements,  etc. 
Great  effort  was  made,  however,  to  maintain  uniformity,  and  this  may  in 
part  account  for  the  lack  of  an  excess  of  R  judgments. 

Inferences  may  also  be  based  upon  hypotheses,  and  depend  in  their 
outcome  upon  subjective  conditions ;  e.  g.,  Reagent  VII  inferred  from 
internal  distraction  that  the  experimenter  was  not  staring,  or  the  dis- 
traction would  have  been  overcome ;  and  entire  absence  of  impression 
was  inferred  to  indicate  that  none  was  sought  to  be  made. 

Other  tendencies  were  also  noted :  "What  did  I  answer  last"  in- 
fluenced Reagent  II,  who  was  obviously  endeavoring  to  keep  positive 
and  negative  guesses  about  equally  frequent.  She  also  occasionally 
made  up  her  mind,  Marbe- fashion,231  to  say  "yes"  next  time;  but  since 
the  series  was  not  voluntarily  made  by  the  experimenter,  coincidence 
due  to  like  tendencies  of  the  two  minds  was  excluded.  And  when  she 
was  "tired  and  bored"  she  wanted  to  say  "no,"  as  a  general  protest  to 
further  experimentation. 

Conclusion. 

Our  conclusion,  with  respect  to  normal  reagents,  is  ( i )  that  the  be- 
lief in  "the  feeling  of  being  stared  at"  is  quite  common  (shared  by 
three-fourths  of  the  university  students)  ;  (2)  that  experiment  shows 
it  to  be  groundless;  (3)  that  there  is  an  explanation  supplementary  to 
that  mentioned  by  Titchener  232  (nervousness,  attracting  attention,  turn- 
ing, catching  the  gazer)  for  the  existence  of  the  belief,  lying  chiefly  in 
attributing  an  objective  validity  to  commonly  experienced  subjective 
impressions  in  the  form  of  imagery,  sensations,  and  impulses.  This  is  a 
tendency  which,  under  favorable  conditions,  works  itself  out  in  Hallu- 
cinations and  Motor  Automatisms,  and  it  seems  to  be  a  common  trait 
in  normal  adults. 


231  Cf.,  K.  Marbe :   Ueber   das    Gedankenlesen    und   die   Gleichformigkeit    des 
psychischen  Geschehens.    Zeitschr.  f.  Psychol.,  1910,  56:241-263. 

232  Op.  cit. 


THE  FEELING  OF  BEING  STARED  AT  153 


II.    REAGENT  REQUESTED  TO  RECORD  HIS  EXPERIENCE. 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  "The  Feeling  of  Being  Stared  At"  was  ex- 
perienced in  the  preceding  series  of  experiments  and  that  the  feeling  did 
not  correlate  with  the  staring,  the  results  did  not  seem  conclusive  to 
some  of  the  reagents  who  felt  confident  that  they  had  proved  their  faith. 
The  chief  criticism  ran  somewhat  as  follows :  "Your  conditions  in  the 
laboratory  are  not  identical  with  those  in  nature:  specifically,  the  'feel- 
ing' is  normally  experienced  by  an  individual  in  an  audience,  or  in  the 
woods,  and  at  a  time  when  his  mind  is  pleasantly  passing  from  one  thing 
to  another  until  it  is  suddenly  seized  by  the  feeling.  That  is  essentially 
different  from  being  confronted  with  the  question  as  to  whether  you  are 
being  stared  at.  Under  the  latter  condition  the  reagent  becomes  self- 
conscious,  suggestible,  'introspective,'  and  her  experience  must  be  ab- 
normal and  unreliable.  Let  her  be  stared  at  without  her  knowing  it, 
and  you'll  find  her  'feeling'  reliable." 

To  meet  this  criticism  a  second  series  of  iooo  experiments  was  per- 
formed, during  the  year  1913-14,  under  conditions  more  similar  to  na- 
ture, and,  as  is  usual  in  compromising  laboratory  method  with  condi- 
tions of  nature,  obtaining  results  less  amenable  to  statistical  treatment. 

As  before,  ten  women,  who  had  experienced  the  feeling,  and  ex- 
pressed some  degree  of  confidence  in  it,  were  selected  from  the  class  in 
General  Psychology,  to  act  as  reagents ;  and  ten  women,  seven  of  whom 
claimed  that  they  had  been  able  to  "will"  persons  sitting  in  front  of 
them  in  an  audience  to  turn  around,  were  selected  from  the  same  class, 
to  act  as  experimenters. 

The  reagent  was  instructed  to  sit  with  her  back  to  the  experiment- 
er (about  2  meters  distant),  to  seek  a  calm,  serene  condition  of  mind 
during  the  interval  of  experiment,  which  would  be  from  15  to  20  sec- 
onds long,  but  yet  to  be  on  the  alert  for  any  impression  which  might 
seem  to  want  to  crowd  itself  into  consciousness.  She  was  not  to  seek 
any  particular  impression,  was  not  to  be  searching  or  inquiring  at  all, 
but  was  to  stand  ready  to  welcome  whatever  should  come.  She  was  to 
record,  after  the  interval,  in  phrases  which  she  could  explain  later  to 
the  researcher,  what  ideas  or  impressions  had  come  into  her  mind.  She 
was  told  that  the  experimenter  would  shake  a  dice-box,  record  the  num- 
ber of  spots  cast,  and  signal  the  beginning  of  the  interval  of  experiment 
with  one  tap  of  her  pencil,  and  its  close  with  two  taps.  She  did  not. 
know  it  was  to  be  a  "staring"  experiment,  but  was  left  with  the  impres- 


154  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

sion  that  its  principal  aim  lay  in  the  completeness  and  accuracy  of  her 
recorded  introspections. 

The  experimenter  was  instructed  to  shake  the  dice-box  in  a 
thorough  manner,  to  keep  the  intervals  between  the  parts  of  the  experi- 
ments and  between  the  experiments  themselves  as  nearly  constant  as 
possible,  not  permitting  the  interval  to  run  under  15  or  over  20  seconds 
or  the  experiments  to  recur  more  rapidly  than  one  a  minute.  She  was 
to  avoid  moving  the  body  during  the  interval  of  experiment,  to  stare 
hard,  during  the  interval  of  experiment,  at  the  back  of  the  reagent's 
head,  neck  and  shoulders,  and  assume  a  determined  attitude  of  will  that 
the  reagent  should  "feel"  the  staring,  when  the  die  cast  odd ;  but  when 
it  cast  even,  she  was  to  keep  her  eyes  and  mind  off  the  reagent,  prefer- 
ably by  keeping  the  eyes  closed  and  the  mind  upon  a  favorite  picture, 
an  ocean  scene,  a  landscape,  or  something  quite  impersonal,  during  the 
whole  interval.  She  was  cautioned  to  keep  her  instructions  to  herself, 
owing  to  the  effect  upon  her  own  reagent  and  upon  the  other  reagents 
if  gossip  started.  The  time  was  observed  from  the  second  hand  of  a 
watch,  or  stop-watch,  but  was  soon  accurately  estimated  so  that  the 
watch  merely  acted  as  a  check  to  the  estimating. 

Results. 

In  the  ten  series  of  100  experiments  each,  the  odds  occurred  43,  44, 
46,  49,  50,  52,  54,  54,  56,  and  59  times,  aggregating  507  times. 

Distraction  was  noted  71  times,  40  during  intervals  conditioned  by 
odd  die-spots,  which  left  467  intervals  of  "staring"  while  the  reagent 
considered  mental  conditions  favorable. 

Among  the  1000  introspections  there  is  not  one  which  suggests  that 
any  of  the  10  reagents  had  "the  feeling  of  being  stared  at"  during  any 
of  the  critical  intervals.  About  20  out  of  the  1000  may  be  regarded  as 
indicating  a  reaction  upon  the  conditions  set  by  the  experimenter ;  such  as 

(1)  Condition  of  mind  good;  image  of  experimenter  sitting  at  table  back  of 
me;   saw  her  hand  holding  a  dice-box.     (1:55;   odd). 

(2)  Fair;  distraction  of  radiator;  saw  experimenter  at  table;  saw  stray  lock 
of  her  hair.     (1:60;    even). 

(3)  Good;    saw  two  four-spots  (of  dice).     (2:7;    even — 2). 

(4)  Good;    saw  a  long  row  of  dice.     (2:90;    even). 

(5)  Not  good;    wondered  what  was  going  on  behind  me.     (3:1;   odd). 

(6)  Good ;  rather  wondered  whether  experimenter  was  suggesting  any  im- 
pression.    (8:16;   even). 

Of  the  twenty,  eight  were  written  upon  intervals  conditioned  by  the 
odd  die-spots. 


THE  FEELING  OF  BEING  STARED  AT  155 

Why  was  not  "the  feeling  of  being  stared  at"  aroused?  In  the 
former  series  it  occurred  but  it  was  not  reliable;  in  this  series  the  re- 
agent's mind  was  relieved  from  self-consciousness,  and  the  reputed 
cause  of  the  "feeling"  was  introduced  during  467  favorable  intervals 
without  result. 

The  cause  of  the  "feeling,"  or,  at  least,  the  factors  of  experience 
upon  which  confidence  in  it  rested,  were  found  to  be  (1)  some  attribute 
or  content  of  the  imagery  present,  (2)  kinaesthetic  sensations  or  images, 
or  (3)  inferences  from  sensations  of  sound  resulting  from  the  experi- 
menter's manipulation  of  the  apparatus,  etc.233  And  it  was  concluded 
that  its  cause  lies  "chiefly  in  attributing  an  objective  validity  to  com- 
monly experienced  subjective  impressions  in  the  form  of  imagery, 
sensations  and  impulses."  234  This  tendency  seemed  a  common  trait  in 
normal  adults. 

An  inspection  of  the  introspections  reveals  the  fact  that  plenty  of 
subjective  impressions,  in  the  form  of  imagery,  sensations,  and  impulses, 
were  experienced  in  this  series  of  experiments,  and  there  is  indication 
that  some  of  them  stand  on  the  threshold  of  a  veridical  interpretation: — 
might  be  regarded  as  cases  of  incipient  clairvoyant  or  other  "psychic" 
capacity : 

(1)  Poor;236  saw  chair  empty  in  next  class.     (1:9;    odd). 

(2)  Good;  saw  girl  with  whom  I  am  going  to  game;  saw  her  on  bleachers, 
expression  on  face,  dress  she  will  wear.     (1:25;    odd). 

(3)  Good;  saw  postman  coming  to  door,  mother  on  porch  receiving  letter. 
(1:57;   odd). 

(4)  Good;  seemed  to  be  looking  down  stairs  of  this  building;  saw  color  and 
texture  of  stairs.     (1:64;   even). 

(5)  Good;    saw  grandmother  who  is  500  miles  away.     (1:79;   even). 

(6)  Good ;  saw  neighbor  getting  off  train ;  she  is  expected  home  today. 
(1:98;   odd). 

(7)  Good;    thought  I  heard  some  one  saying  my  name.     (2:19;    odd). 

(8)  Good;    heard  whisper  "4"  back  of  experimenter.     (2:1;    even — 2). 

(9)  Fair;   "ninety-three."     (9:4;   even). 

(10)  Good;   thought  of  the  number  "three."     (10:37;    even). 

(11)  Good;    saw  hands  of  library  clock  ten  minutes  after  four.     (5:74;  even). 

(12)  Fair;    hand  itches;    am  I  going  to  meet  some  one?     (7:30;    odd). 

(13)  Good;    felt  as  if  I  wanted  to  speak.     (2:8;    even). 

(14)  Good;    impulse  to  put  hand  to  head.     (6:26;   even). 

(15)  Good;   felt  as  if  trying  to  pronounce  words.     (10:33;    even). 


233  Vide,  supra,  pp.  150  f. 

234  Vide,  supra,  p.  152. 

235  Condition  of  the  mind  during  the  critical  interval. 


156  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

The  reason  that  these  impressions,  sensations,  and  impulses  do  not 
have  the  attribute  of  objective  validity  seems  to  be  that  the  situation 
was  not  recognized  by  the  reagent  as  one  in  which  veridical  impressions 
are  likely  to  occur.  Let  the  suggestion  be  given  that  impressions  re- 
ceived during  the  interval  may  not  be  entirely  free  from  the  experi- 
menter's control,  and  the  attribute  of  objectivity  in  varying  degrees  of 
certainty  is  conferred  upon  them,  as  was  the  case  in  the  Card-guessing, 
and  in  the  first  series  of  Staring  experiments. 

Supplementary  Experiments. 

To  test  this  further  with  Staring  experiments,  but  under  conditions 
in  which  the  suggestion  was  not  so  direct,  two  more  young  women,  who 
regarded  themselves  as  being  sensitive  for  staring,  were  selected  from 
the  class  in  General  Psychology  to  act  as  reagents,  and  their  experiment- 
ers were  similarly  chosen  for  their  faith  in  their  power  to  will  persons 
to  turn  around.  Each  pair  performed  ioo  experiments.  Procedure  was 
the  same  as  in  the  main  series,  except  that  the  reagent  was  given  the  fol- 
lowing instructions : 

"During  the  critical  interval  you  are  to  keep  your  mind  free  from  external  and 
internal  distraction,  open  for  any  impression  or  suggestion  that  wants  to  come  into 
consciousness ;   this  may  not  be  entirely  free  from  the  experimenter's  influence." 

Introspections  were  recorded  as  before. 

In  the  first  supplementary  set  the  die  cast  odd  numbers,  condition- 
ing staring,  fifty  times,  and  there  were  twenty-six  introspections  the 
content  of  which  referred  to  the  experimenter's  influence  in  "Willing," 
transmitting  thought,  and  "Staring" ;  58%  of  them  occurred  in  experi- 
ments when  the  experimenter  stared,  and  42%  when  the  experimenter 
did  not  stare.     The  following  are  samples : 

2:  10.  Felt  as  if  the  experimenter's  attention  was  upon  me.     (S).236 

3 :  10.  I  thought  the  experimenter  had  some  influence  on  thought ;  she  was 
thinking  about  me.     (2). 

4:4.  Thought  the  experimenter  was  looking  at  a  certain  spot  on  my  head,  low 
down;   wanted  to  turn  around  and  see.     (3). 

6:3.  Felt  she  must  be  looking  at  or  thinking  about  me.     (6). 

7:1.  Felt  something  pulling  me  her  way.     (6). 

7:5.  Wanted  to  ask  her  if  my  hair  was  all  right;    felt  her  looking  at  it.     (1). 

8:7.  She  seemed  to  be  looking  at  me.     (4). 

This  reagent  explained  that  she  suspected,  from  the  instructions 
given  her,   that   the   experimenter   would   attempt   to   influence   her  by 

286  Die-spot. 


THE  FEELING  OF  BEING  STARED  AT  157 

thinking  or  staring  when  certain  die-spots  were  shown.  Early  in  the 
set  she  noticed  that  the  experimenter's  tap  signaling  the  beginning  of 
the  interval  varied  in  strength,  and  inferred  from  a  sharp  tap  that  the 
experimenter  would  either  think  about  her  or  stare  at  her.  From  this 
cue,  which  did  not  turn  out  to  be  very  reliable,  her  experience  during  the 
interval  readily  developed. 

In  the  second  supplementary  set  the  die  came  up  odd  51  times,  and 
25  introspections  were  marked  by  the  reagent  as  records  of  experience 
probably  caused  by  the  experimenter.  They  were  classified  into  two 
groups  according  to  the  reference  of  the  content  to  the  experimenter's 
thoughts  or  to  her  actions ;  out  of  twelve  of  the  former,  five,  and  out  of 
thirteen  of  the  latter,  seven,  fell  upon  experiments  when  the  experiment- 
er stared.  There  were  five  cases  of  the  feeling  of  being  stared  at,  four 
of  them  falling  on  experiments  conditioned  by  odd  die-spots.  The  more 
pertinent  of  the  marked  introspections  follow : 

6:4.  Experimenter's  paper  and  pencil:    her  hands.     (5). 

6:8.  Experimenter  looking  at  me.     (1). 

7:10.  Experimenter  looking  at  dice.     (4). 

8:3.  Experimenter  looking  at  me  and  at  paper.     (6). 

8:8.  Experimenter  watching  me.     (1). 

9:1.  Experimenter  looking  from  me  to  paper.     (1). 

9:8.  Experimenter  looking  at  watch.     (6). 

9:9.  Experimenter  looking  at  me.     (1). 

10:5.  Die  with  five  spots  on  top.     (6). 

10:6.  Experimenter  looking  at  my  back.     (6). 

10:8.  Experimenter  holding  pencil.     (1). 

Hit  and  miss  cases  of  the  feeling  of  being  stared  at  occur  in  a  va- 
riety of  impressions,  some  of  which  are  fair  samples  of  incipient  clair- 
voyance and  compare  not  unfavorably  with  those  in  which  "psychics" 
place  unreserved  confidence.  For  these  impressions  to  be  pertinent,  only 
slight  suggestions  in  word  or  external  condition  appear  to  be  necessary. 

When  the  situation,  however,  is  not  recognized  to  be  probably  a 
"staring"  one,  the  reagent,  although  his  mind  is  free  from  the  self-con- 
sciousness undoubtedly  induced  by  the  method  of  the  first  series  and  is 
in  as  favorable  a  state  as  could  be  desired  for  being  seized  with  the  feel- 
ing of  being  stared  at,  has  impressions  which  occasionally  approach 
"psychical  phenomena,"  but  which,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  first  part  of 
this  series,  are  devoid  of  any  reference  to  frequent  and  competent 
staring. 


158  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 


III.    MULTIPLE  STARERS. 

One  more  criticism  seemed  to  be  worthy  of  test.  It  was  suggested 
that  the  force  of  a  single  person's  staring  might  not  be  sufficient  to  rise 
above  the  threshold  of  awareness,  under  laboratory  conditions,  and  it 
may  be  for  this  reason  that  laboratory  results  do  not  confirm  the  belief 
which  has  grown  out  of  general  experience. 

A  series  of  ioo  experiments  was  consequently  carried  out  during 
1913-14  for  testing  this  criticism.  Four  reagents  were  chosen  in  like 
manner  as  before  for  their  special  qualifications ;  Reagents  A,  B,  and 
C  (women),  because  of  their  sensitiveness  for  staring,  and  Reagent  D 
(a  man),  because  of  some  training  in  reading  slight  sensible  signals. 
Twelve  starers  were  appointed,  five  women  and  seven  men,  some  of 
whom  were  somewhat  skeptical,  but  all  of  whom  were  willing  to  do 
their  best  to  give  the  "feeling"  hypothesis  a  fair  trial.  Only  on  the  last 
day,  however,  when  series  8,  9,  and  10  were  performed,  were  all  of  the 
starers  in  their  places ;  on  the  first  day  two  men  and  on  the  second  day 
three  men  were  absent.  The  sittings  took  place  in  the  large  lecture 
room  (No.  414)  from  11 :  15  to  12:  15  on  Fridays  (Nov.  6,  20,  Dec.  4). 
The  disposition  of  the  reagents  and  starers  is  shown  below,  the  distance 
between  the  reagents  and  the  first  row  of  starers  being  a  little  over  two 
meters : 

Reagents    A  B  C  D 

000  o 


Starers   o      o      o 

00000 
00  00 

The  instructions  to  the  reagents  A,  B,  and  C  were  to  rest  comfort- 
ably with  eyes  closed,  during  the  critical  interval,  and  to  keep  the  mind 
in  the  most  favorable  condition,  according  to  their  judgment,  for  de- 
termining immediately  after  the  interval  whether  they  had  been  stared 
at,  for  at  this  time  they  were  to  record  their  judgment  in  "Yes"  or 
"No,"  and  were  to  write  the  customary  introspections  descriptive  of 
their  experience.  They  were  informed  that  the  staring  would  be  con- 
trolled pari  passu  by  the  dice-spots.     Reagent  D  was  instructed  to  keep 


THE  FEELING  OF  BEING  STARED  AT  159 

his  eyes  closed,  during  the  interval,  and  to  endeavor  to  judge  as  best  he 
might  from  slight  sounds  such  as  are  made  by  the  movement  of  the 
body,  of  the  feet,  of  clothing,  or  by  changes  in  the  breathing,  whether 
the  starers  were  staring. 

The  starers  were  instructed  that  when  an  odd  number  was  cast  by  the 
die  they  were  to  stare  concentratedly  at  the  second  person  from  the  left 
(Reagent  B)  ;  but  when  an  even  number  was  cast  to  close  their  eyes,  dur- 
ing the  critical  interval,  and  image  (intensely)  a  black  cat  on  the  lecture 
table,  facing  the  left.  In  either  case,  during  the  interval  they  were  to 
assume  a  strong  attitude  of  will  that  the  second  person  from  the  left 
should  share  their  mental  content.  The  starer  who  sat  in  the  middle  of 
the  front  row  was  appointed  master  of  ceremonies.  He  shook  the  dice- 
box,  held  up  the  die  so  that  all  starers  could  see  the  spots  cast,  kept  the 
time,  and  tapped  signals  to  begin  and  to  close  the  critical  interval,  which 
was  15  seconds  in  duration.  At  the  beginning  the  experiments  ran 
slowly ;   later  they  recurred  at  the  rate  of  one  a  minute. 

At  the  conclusion  of  the  series  of  experiments  the  starers  were 
asked  to  hand  in  a  written  statement  describing  their  experience  during 
the  interval,  telling  exactly  what  they  did  when  an  odd  number  was 
cast,  what  they  did  when  an  even  number  was  cast,  and  describing  any 
deviation  during  the  hour  or  between  days  of  experiment. 

Results. 

Of  the  100  throws,  odds  were  cast  55  times;  hence,  in  55  experi- 
ments the  crowd  of  starers  stared  at  Reagent  B,  and  in  45  experiments 
they  closed  their  eyes  and  sought  to  transfer  to  Reagent  B  their  respec- 
tive images  of  a  black  cat. 

Reagent  B,  who  had  been  chosen  as  the  most  sensitive  of  the  three, 
the  only  reagent  who  was  stared  at,  recorded  "Yes"  34  times ;  56% 
were  right;  of  the  100  judgments,  49%  were  right.  The  probable  per 
cent  is  50. 

The  multiplication  of  starers  undoubtedly  increased  the  vividness 
of  the  experience,  as  is  shown  by  the  reagent's  introspections.  Most  of 
those  accompanying  her  "Yes"  judgments  are  given  below  in  two  lists 
according  to  whether  the  reagent  had  been  stared  at : 

(1)   Reagent  Stared  at. 
I  :  5.  Heart  beat  faster. 
7  :  5.  Heart  beat  faster ;    expectant  feeling. 
2:6.  Felt  warmer. 

2:9.  Thumping  in  ears  (felt  skeptical). 
10 : 9.  Felt  conscious  of  my  ears. 


160  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

1 :8.  Felt  choked  ;    tightening  of  throat. 

3:7.  Queer  catching  of  the  breath. 

4 : 3.  Felt  throbbing  at  back  of  neck ;    mind  a  blank. 

3:4.  Kinaesthetic  sensations  in  shoulders. 

4:8.  Kinaesthetic  sensations  in  shoulder. 

5:9.  Kinaesthetic  sensations  in  arms  and  hands. 

4:4.  Hard  to  describe  my  feelings:   just  felt  I  was  being  stared  at. 

8:7.  Felt  "conscious." 

8:2.  Expectation  and  feeling  of  realization. 

8 : 5.  Felt  several  pairs  of  eyes  on  back  of  my  head. 

9 : 3.  Felt  eyes  on  the  back  of  my  head. 

9: 10.  Conscious  of  presence  of  those  behind  me. 

1  : 4.  No  definite  feeling  except  "consciousness." 

(2)  Reagent  Not  Stared  At. 
1 :  10.  Kinaesthetic  sensations  at  back  of  neck  and  in  cheeks. 
2:10.  Muscular  movements  in  back. 
2:1.  Tightening  of  muscles  inside;   faster  heart  beat. 

1  .3.  Felt  like  more  blood  rushed  to  my  head. 
2:3.  Breathing  hard;    expectant  feeling. 
7:6.  Breathless  for  a  moment,  reeling. 

2  : 5.  Queer  feeling  at  pit  of  stomach. 
6:4.  Felt  twitching  of  ears. 

10 :  10.  Felt  conscious  of  my  ears. 
10:4.  Kinaesthetic  sensations  in  my  right  shoulder. 
3:1.  Indescribable  feeling  of  self-consciousness. 
5 : 5.  Felt  like  I  was  being  looked  at ;   ears  got  hot. 
10 : 6.  Thought  I  felt  their  eyes ;    wasn't  sure. 
3:6.  Mind  concentrated  on  self. 

An  examination  of  these  lists  reveals  (a)  the  sensitiveness  of  the 
reagent,  some  of  her  experiences  being  almost  painful  and  some  of  them 
quite  embarrassing;  (b)  the  elements  of  her  experience  upon  which  the 
affirmative  judgment  is  grounded;  and  (c)  the  occurrence  of  these  ele- 
ments impartially  in  both  lists.  Although  the  first  list  seems  somewhat 
more  satisfactory,  the  introspections  being  greater  in  number  and  some 
of  them  more  positive  in  statement,  the  difference  would  hardly  be  sat- 
isfactory to  any  believer  in  the  theory  for  use  in  supporting  his  belief. 

The  results  of  Reagents  A  and  C  fall  in  the  same  class,  since  neither 
of  these  reagents  was  stared  at. 

Reagent  A  judged  "Yes"  14  times.  Some  of  the  introspections  ac- 
companying her  affirmative  judgments  indicate  the  elements  of  experi- 
ence responsible  for  them : 

1  -.4.  Strong  feeling  in  center  of  back;    tendency  to  turn  around.    (1). 
1  : 7.  I    felt   a   tendency   to   turn   to   my   right   like   some   one  over   my   right 
shoulder  was  thinking  of  us.     (5). 


THE  FEELING  OF  BEING  STARED  AT  161 

2:1.  Felt  cold — shivered.     (2). 

3:3.  Strong  idea  that  it  was  cold.     (1). 

4:4.  Felt  impression  in  middle  of  back.     (1). 

4:7.  Wondered  if  Reagent  B  was  feeling  what  I  was;  could  not  tell  whether 
I  felt  her  being  stared  at.     (4). 

S :  2.  Thought  how  peculiar  and  foolish  experiments  were  and  wondered  how 
they  did  any  good;   and  yet  felt  I  was  being  stared  at.     (6). 

5:6.  Felt  as  if  the  starers  were  staring  at  me;  and  the  other  reagents  not 
entering  (not  being  stared  at).     (5). 


8.  Rather  strange  feeling — very  centered.     (6). 

8.  Felt  leader's  eyes  upon  me.     (1). 

4.  Felt  people  staring  at  my  head,  and  also  at  Reagent  B.     (4). 


The  effect  of  the  suggestion  furnished  by  the  setting  of  the  experi- 
ment is  also  shown  by  several  cases  in  which  the  experience  was  on  the 
point  of  developing  and  again  in  which  it  had  been  begun  but  did  not 
mature  into  affirmative  judgments: 

6:7.  Thought  it  was  about  time,  but  felt  nothing.     (6). 

7 : 4.  About  time,  came  over  me,  for  some  one  to  stare  at  me ;  no  feeling, 
however.     (6). 

3:4.  At  first,  no  thoughts;   later,  thought  of  starers,  but  effect  was  gone.     (3). 

6:2.  Felt  a  wave  of  something,  like  some  one  thought  about  staring  but  did 
not.    (2). 

Reagent  C  made  16  "Yes"  judgments.  Her  introspections  accom- 
panying the  latter  indicate  the  positiveness  of  her  experience : 

1:3.  Felt  as  though  some  one  were  staring  at  back  of  head.     (4). 

1:5.  Felt  self-conscious;   had  desire  to  laugh.     (3). 

1  :o.  Had  a  feeling  of  being  stared  at,  and  a  sort  of  visual  image  of  starer 
(eyes,  etc.).     (4). 

2:6.  Had  a  sort  of  dull  feeling  in  head  as  though  headache  was  coming 
on.     (3). 

3:1.  Felt  that  they  kept  on  staring  after  two  taps.     (2). 

3:9.  Felt  I  was  being  stared  at  in  back  of  head.     (1). 

4:6.  Felt  as  though  starers  on  right  side  did  most  of  the  work.     (2). 

4:10.  Felt  great  desire  to  turn  around  and  look  at  [the  person]  who  was 
staring  at  me.     (5). 

5:8.  Quite  sure;  felt  however  as  though  they  were  not  staring  with  all  their 
might.     (6). 

5:9.  Felt  some  one  staring.     (3). 

7:7.  Felt  as  though  some  one  were  staring  at  my  back.     (3). 

8:1.  Felt  distinctly  that  I  was  being  stared  at.     (6). 

9:4.  Felt  that  starer  on  left  side  was  "doing  the  work."     (5). 

9:6.  Had  distinct  idea  of  being  stared  at.     (6). 

10:2.  Felt  that  I  was  being  stared  at.     (4). 
10: 10.  Felt  this  time  that  I  was  being  stared  at.     (6). 


162  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

Other  introspections,  accompanying  "No"  judgments,  indicate  in- 
cipient stages  of  the  feeling  of  being  stared  at : 

2:10.  Was  not  quite  sure;    hesitated  about  saying  "no."     (2). 

4:2.  Slight  doubt  as  to  "No."     (6). 

4:7.  Slight  doubt  as  to  "No."      (4). 

6:3.  Was  not  positive  enough  to  say  "Yes."     (6). 

9:1.  Was  not  quite  sure  about  saying  "No."     (2). 

The  fruitfulness  of  the  experimental  situation  for  suggestion  may 
be  seen  in  still  other  introspections  written  by  reagents  A,  B,  and  C; 
first,  regarding  others  being  stared  at ;    then  a  few  miscellaneous  cases : 

Reagent  B. 
4:1.  Felt  as  if  they  were  staring  at  Reagent  C  at  my  right.     (5). 
5:8.  Felt  Reagent  A  was  being  stared  at.     (6). 
7:2.  No  sensations:    felt  others  were  being  stared  at.     (5). 
9:8.  Felt  as  though  my  neighbors  were  being  stared  at.     (2). 

Reagent  A. 
10:10.  Felt  that  the  starers  missed  me  and  were  staring  at  the  chair  next  to 
me,  not  the  person   (Reagent  B) .     (6). 

Reagent  C. 
2:3.  Felt  "No,  they  are  staring  at  some  one  else."     (4). 

4:5.  Felt  as  though  reagents  on  my  left  were  being  stared  at  (Reagents  A 
and  B).     (4). 

7:3.  Felt  as  though  some  one  was  staring,  but  not  at  me.     (1). 
9:7.  Felt  that  other  reagents  were  being  stared  at.     (3). 

Miscellaneous  Cases. 
C.  3:7.  Found  myself  saying  inwardly  "Is  some  one  staring  at  me?"     (1). 
C.  6:7.  Found  myself  acting  as  though  I  were  starer,  saying  "I  am  looking 
at  you";    peculiar  condition.     (6). 

C.  6:8.  Still  wondering  about  preceding  experiment.      (1). 

A.  3:8.  Saw  "No,  no,"  on  my  paper.     (1). 

The  statistical  and  administrative  phases  of  the  experimentation 
were  not  without  suggestive  power : 

B.  7 :  10.  Speculated  on  how  many  times  I've  been  wrong. 
B.  9 :6.  Speculated  on  outcome  of  this  experimentation. 
B.  10:10.  Anxious  to  know  outcome  of  experimentation. 

A.  4:5.  Wondered  how  they  marked  the  person  to  be  stared  at. 

Occasionally,  as  in  the  card-guessing,  the  impressions,  although 
vivid  and  definite,  had  no  bearing  upon  the  matter  in  hand ;    as, 

A.  7:7.  Braced  my  mind  to  think  on  nothing,  but  suddenly  a  visual  image 
of  a  street  in  Palo  Alto  and  the  Episcopal  church  came  before  my  eyes. 


THE  FEELING  OF  BEING  STARED  AT  163 

The  chief  contribution  of  the  introspections  of  this  series,  however, 
lies  in  their  illustration  of  the  fact  that  if  the  situation  is  recognized  by 
the  reagent  as  probably  a  staring  situation,  "the  feeling  of  being  stared 
at"  is  quite  likely  to  be  evoked  in  grades  of  definiteness  from  doubtful 
certainty  to  painful  and  embarrassing  certainty;  and  that  the  reagents 
incentives  for  conferring  the  objective  attribute  upon  his  inner  experi- 
ence are  derived  from  his  acceptance  of  the  suggestions  of  the  situation, 
and  not  from  the  objective  fact  which  his  experience  seems  to  him  to 
definitely  and  truly  report. 

If  the  judgments  of  Reagents  A  and  C  are  regarded  as  referring  to 
the  staring  at  Reagent  B  instead  of  at  themselves,  Right  cases  are  45% 
and  43%  respectively,  as  against  the  probability  of  50%. 

The  R  cases  of  Reagent  D,  whose  judgments  referred  to  the  fact 
of  staring  only,  are  50%.  His  introspective  report  is  a  vindication  of 
the  method  of  experiment,  with  reference  to  the  oft-repeated  criticism 
that  slight  sounds  furnish  the  sub-conscious  cue  for  the  reagent's  judg- 
ments. The  imaging  of  the  black  cat  on  the  demonstration  table  during 
the  intervals  of  no  staring  was  designed  to  assist  the  starers  to  keep  the 
conditions  of  the  regular  and  the  control  experiments  uniform.  Owing 
to  the  number  of  starers  it  was  feared  that  such  unconscious  indications 
might  be  sufficient  through  their  cumulation  to  introduce  error.  Since 
Reagent  D,  who  judged  "No"  when  he  heard  rustling  of  clothing  indica- 
tive of  movement  or  shifting  of  position,  feet  tapping  or  striking  or 
scraping  a  chair  or  the  floor,  chairs  moved,  paper  rattled,  or  sighing, 
and  judged  "Yes"  when  there  was  "no  sound,"  "absolute  silence,"  or 
"utter  silence,"  was  not  able  to  raise  his  R  judgments  above  mere  chance, 
the  field  would  have  been  clear  for  identifying  a  super-sensible  cause 
in  the  R  cases  of  the  feeling  of  being  stared  at,  had  they  not  occurred 
impartially  upon  both  regular  and  control  experiments,  and  with  the 
control  reagents  as  well  as  with  Reagent  B. 

Another  vindication  of  our  methods  of  experiment  in  the  laboratory, 
using  as  reagents  students  selected  from  classes  in  General  Psychology, 
should  perhaps  be  pointed  out  while  the  conditions  of  this  series  of 
experiments  are  fresh  in  the  reader's  mind.  The  fact  that  none  of  the 
reagents  saw  a  black  cat  on  the  demonstration  table,  indicates  that  a 
group  of  sixteen  students  have  been  sufficiently  faithful  to  their  trust 
that  during  the  three  weeks  of  experimentation  no  breath  of  gossip 
reached  the  ears  of  the  reagents. 

Of  course,  the  non-appearance  of  the  black  cat  also  indicates 
(1)  that  a  sensitive  reagent  can  spend  45  periods  of  15  seconds  each  in 
a  state  of  mind  judged  by  herself  as  most   favorable   for  receiving  a 


164  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

feeling  of  being  stared  at,  and  be  the  unconscious  target  for  shafts  ol 
visual  imagery  from  twelve  persons,  without  being  aroused  by  the  cu- 
mulated energy  of  thought-projection;  and  (2)  that  two  reagents,  more 
or  less  sensitive,  can  be  in  close  proximity  to  and  carelessly  exposed  45 
times  to  the  same  battery  of  black-cat  images  without  danger  of  being  hit. 
Since  none  of  the  reagents  got  a  "generic  image"  23T  of  a  cat  "com- 
pounded from  the  minds"  of  the  twelve  starers,  no  description  of  it  was 
available  from  the  introspections,  but  the  reader  may  be  interested  to 
learn  some  of  the  characteristics  of  the  respective  cats  as  imaged  in  the 
different  minds.  The  following  four  quotations  will  be  sufficient  to  illus- 
trate the  diversity  in  detail : 

(1)  A  huge  black  cat  sitting  on  the  table,  looking  out  of  the  window. 

(2)  I  always  thought  of  the  same  black  cat  in  the  same  attitude.  It  was 
always  the  bushy-tailed,  "stocking  ad"  cat  with  said  tail  elevated  at  an  agle  of  40°. 

(3)  I  closed  my  eyes  and  thought  of  a  black  cat ;  it  very  often  looked  like 
the  one  in  the  shoestore  back  of  the  postoffice;  its  eyes  would  move,  though,  and 
its  whole  body  sway,  very  often.  .  .  .  Sometimes  it  would  be  very  quiet  and 
still,  and  pop  its  eyes  right  out  and  stare  with  a  glassy  look. 

(4)  The  cat  had  his  back  arched;  his  eyes  were  green;  the  hair  on  his  neck 
stood  upright ;    he  was  a  fierce  cat. 

This  diversity  in  detail  following  general  instructions  to  image  a 
black  cat  is  not  greater  here  than  the  writer  has  found  it  in  a  sitting 
where  several  professional  'psychics'  saw  clairvoyantly  an  ethereal  being 
in  the  room  and  later  independently  described  the  detail  of  position, 
posture,  features,  raiment,  etc. 

The  reports  handed  in  at  the  close  of  the  experimentation  show  that 
the  starers  knew  their  duty,  and  that  there  is  every  reason  to  believe 
that  they  acquitted  themselves  well.  Most  of  them  were  favorably  dis- 
posed toward  the  "feeling"  hypothesis;  some  were  agnostic.  Sample 
quotations  follow : 

(1)  Personally,  I  have  always  been  somewhat  attracted  to  the  idea  of  Mental 
Telepathy.  .  .  .  There  are  times  when  one  does  feel  like  he  is  being  stared  at  and 
finds  it  to  be  true,  and  there  are  cases  when  one  is  unaccountably  depressed  or 
elated  and  finds  out  later  that  some  good  news,  or  the  contrary,  was  on  the  way, 
or  that  something  pleasing  or  displeasing  has  happened ;  these  incidents  being  such 
that  he  could  not  possibly  have  known  anything  about  them.  I  suppose,  of  course, 
in  anything  of  this  kind  we  always  neglect,  or  at  least  have  a  tendency  to  neglect, 
negative  instances,  and  this  will  account  for  a  good  deal  of  the  assurance  with 
which  some  people  declare  their  belief  in  Mental  Telepathy.  ...  It  is  undoubtedly 
true  that  when  you  are  closely  associated  with  some  one  who  is  feeling  "out  of 
sorts,"  although  he  carefully  conceals  the  fact,  you  are  affected  by  his  depression. 


237  Cf.,  Jordan :    The  sympsychograph.    Pop.  Sci.  Mo.,  1806,  49 :  597-602. 


THE  FEELING  OF  BEING  STARED  AT  165 

Why  is  it   not  possible   for   stronger   feelings   of  a  like  nature   to  be   transmitted 
greater  distances?  ...  I  have  always  had  a  certain  amount  of  belief  in  it. 

(2)  I  am  not  skeptical  regarding  the  experiment. 

(3)  As  for  the  value  of  the  experiment  I  do  not  see  but  that  there  should  be 
some  results  worthy  of  note.     I  do  believe  in  some  form  of  Mental  Telepathy. 

(4)  Although  I  have  never  experienced  the  feeling  of  being  stared  at,  I  think 
it  is  quite  possible  for  one  to  have  that  feeling,  for  many  times  I  have  looked  up  to 
find  some  one  staring  at  me  and  thought  at  the  time  that  this  caused  me  to  look 
up,  although  the  definite  feeling  was  lacking. 

(5)  Since  I  have  never  had  a  conclusive  proof  of  any  positive  effect  of  staring 
at  another's  back,  I  naturally  have  not  much  faith.  However,  I  am  hoping  to  have 
this  point  settled  when  the  results  of  the  effects  on  the  reagents  and  their  attitudes 
of  mind  are  known. 

(6)  I  am  a  skeptic  on  this  subject  ...  but  this  does  not  mean  that  I  have 
certain  preconceived  ideas  which  are  not  possible  of  eradication.  I  am  open-minded 
enough  to  be  willing  to  consider  the  possibility  of  anything.  But  just  one  objection 
occurs  to  me  in  this  connection ;  namely,  that  if  this  faculty  is  at  all  wide-spread 
its  evidences  should  be  so  manifest  as  to  require  no  discussion.  A  professor  when 
he  asks  a  question  thinks  of  the  answer  he  expects,  but  the  student  never  flatters 
himself  that  he  gets  any  enlightening  suggestions  from  this  method.  ...  In  a 
word  the  facts  of  everyday  life  all  point  away  from  such  a  conclusion.  The  scien- 
stared  at.  .  .  .  I  have  never  been  conscious  that  any  one  has  been  staring  at  me. 
tific  aspect  of  the  subject  I  do  not  pretend  to  know  anything  about. 

(7)  I  do  not  believe  that  any  accurate  results  [of  proof]  can  be  obtained.  I 
think  that  it  is  only  a  matter  of  chance  in  knowing  [judging]  whether  one  is  being 

How  impotent  the  combined  staring,  and  the  combined  effort  at 
projecting  the  imagery  of  a  black  cat,  proved  to  be,  and  how  fortuitous 
was  the  occurrence  of  the  feeling  of  being  stared  at,  can  be  more  fully 
realized,  perhaps,  by  inspecting  a  few  of  the  experiments  in  cross- 
section;  thus  getting  a  record  of  the  synchronous  experiences  of  the 
respective  reagents  under  the  two  general  conditions  of  experimentation: 

Reagent  B  was  Stared  At. 

1:4.      A.  Strong  feeling  in  center  of  back;    tendency  to  turn  around. — Yes.238 

B.  No  definite  feeling,  except  "consciousness." — Yes. 

C.  Mind  in  normal  condition. — No. 

D.  Heard  nothing  at  all :    silence. — Yes. 

1:7.      A.  Felt  a  tendency  to  turn  to  my  right,  like  some  one  over  right  shoulder 
was  thinking  of  me. — Yes. 

B.  No  sensations. — No. 

C.  Required  conscious  effort  not  to  follow  a  train  of  thought. — No. 

D.  Heard  no  sound  or  movement. — Yes. 


238  To  interpret  the  line :  The  numbers  indicate  the  fourth  experiment  of  the 
first  series  (of  ten)  ;  the  letter  indicates  the  reagent;  the  judgment  following  the 
record  of  experience  relates  to  the  staring. 


166  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 

4:10.     A.  Closed  eyes;    tired  feeling. — No. 

B.  No  sensations. — No. 

C.  Felt  great  desire  to  turn  around  and  look  at  [the  person]  who  was  staring 
at  me. — Yes. 

D.  Heard  nothing. — Yes. 

7:2.      A.  Cold;    shivered. — No. 

B.  No  sensations ;    felt  others  were  being  looked  at. — No. 

C.  Normal  condition. — No. 

D.  Silence  in  the  rear  of  room. — Yes. 

A  Black  Cat  Was  Imaged,  and  the  Thought  Directed  Toward  Reagent  B. 

1:3.      A.  Wondered  when  the  tap  would  come  (to  close  the  interval). — No. 

B.  Felt  like  more  blood  rushed  to  my  head. — Yes. 

C.  Felt  as  though  some  one  were  staring  at  back  of  head. — Yes. 

D.  Heard  a  shifting  behind  me. — No. 

2:3.      A.  Wondered  how  high  the  flag-pole  was. — No. 

B.  Breathing  hard ;    expectant  feeling. — Yes. 

C.  Felt  "No,  they  are  staring  at  some  one  else." — No. 

D.  Complete  silence  behind  me. — Yes. 

2:10.    A.  Wondered  how  many  experiments.     Whether  they   really  were  staring, 
and  I  could  not  recognize  it. — No. 

B.  Muscular  movements  in  back.- — Yes. 

C.  Was  not  quite  sure ;    hesitated  about  saying  "No." — No. 

D.  Heard  nothing. — Yes. 

4:7.      A.  Wondered  if  Reagent  B  was  feeling  what  I  was.    Could  not  tell  whether 
I  felt  her  being  stared  at.  — Yes. 

B.  Thought  of  all  the  things  I  should  be  doing  at  home. — No. 

C.  Slight  doubt  as  to  "No." — No. 

D.  Heard  no  sound  behind  me. — Yes. 

5:8.      A.  Rather  strange  feeling;    very  centered. — Yes. 

B.  Felt  Reagent  A  was  being  stared  at. — No. 

C.  Quite  sure ;    felt,  however,  as  though  they  were  not  staring  with  all  their 
might. — Yes. 

D.  Heard  no  sounds. — Yes. 

6rf.      ^Thought  it  was  about  time,  but  felt  nothing. — Ho. 

B.  Had  auditory  image  of  sounds  in  Psychol,  yesterday. — No. 

C.  Found  myself  acting  as  though  I  were  starer,  saying,  "I  am  looking  at 
you" ;   peculiar  condition. — No. 

D.  Heard  a  sound  of  shifting  of  position. — No. 

9:1.      A.  Wondered  how  long  this  series  would  take. — No. 

B.  No  unusual  sensations;    thoughts  wandered. — No. 

C.  Was  not  quite  sure  about  saying  "No." — No. 

D.  Complete  silence  at  rear  of  room. — Yes. 


THE  FEELING  OF  BEING  STARED  AT  167 


Conclusion. 


"The  Feeling  of  Being  Stared  At"  is  experienced  in  the  laboratory 
when  the  experimental  situation  is  recognized  by  the  reagent  as  probably 
a  staring  situation.  It  does  not  correlate  with  the  external  fact  of 
staring  whether  the  reagent  is  or  is  not  stared  at  during  the  experimen- 
tation, or  whether  the  staring  is  done  by  one  person  or  by  twelve  persons. 
When  the  situation  is  not  recognized  by  the  reagent  as  providing  staring, 
the  feeling  does  not  occur.  It  seems  probable,  therefore,  that  the  occur- 
rence of  the  feeling  is  dependent  upon  suggestion  alone,  having  no 
causal  relation  to  the  fact  of  staring. 

Analysis  of  experience  reveals  imagery,  sensations,  and  impulses  as 
the  points  de  repcre,  if  not  the  essential  constitution,  of  the  "feeling," 
although  many  attempts  in  the  introspections  left  the  "feeling"  unan- 
alyzable.  Certainty  often  depends  upon  the  vividness  of  the  imagery 
and  its  apparently  independent  behavior. 

In  all  situations  where  the  reagent  seeks  to  free  her  mind  from  all 
distraction,  external  and  internal,  impressions  in  great  variety  insinuate 
themselves  into  consciousness ;  some  of  these  have  no  apparent  relation 
to  the  business  in  hand.  In  this  respect  normal  reagents  and  sensitive 
reagents  are  similar.  While  the  former,  however,  confer  objectivity 
only  upon  those  impressions  relevant  to  the  experiment,  the  latter  regard 
their  irrelevant  impressions  as  veridical  either  in  their  literal  or  in  a 
symbolic  sense.  It  is  true  that  the  psychic  is  likely  to  enjoy  impressions 
in  greater  profusion ;  but  this  may  be  owing  to  her  practice  as  an  auto- 
matic instrument  for  the  manifestation  of  what  she  regards  as  other 
(usually  'spirit')  personalities  or  for  the  expression  of  as  yet  unknown 
cosmic  forces. 

Sensory  and  motor  automatisms,  then,  from  incipient  to  hallucina- 
tory grade,  are  shared  by  both  normal  and  sensitive  reagents,  and  con- 
stitute the  inner  experience  of  "the  feeling  of  being  stared  at"  and  of 
thought-transference,  but,  so  far  as  our  experiments  (which  number  in 
the  aggregate  14,500)  are  qualified  to  indicate,  bear  no  causal  relation 
to  the  external  processes  or  facts  to  which  they  refer. 


PART  II. 

EXPERIMENTS 

ON 

SUBLIMINAL  IMPRESSION 


May  there  not  be  around  our  normal  perception,  a 
fringe  of  perceptions,  most  often  unconscious,  but  all 
ready  to  enter  into  consciousness,  and  in  fact  entering  in 
in  certain  exceptional  cases  or  in  certain  predisposed  sub- 
jects? If  there  are  perceptions  of  this  kind,  it  is  not 
only  psychology  in  the  strict  meaning  of  the  term  that 
they  concern;  they  are  facts  with  which  "psychical 
research"  could  and  should  concern  itself. — Professor 
Henri  Bergson,  in  his  Presidential  Address,  delivered  in 
Aeolian  Hall,  London,  May  28,  1913.  before  the  Society 
for   Psychical   Research.      (Proceedings  S.  P.  R-,  27  :  170.) 

"The  most  interesting  and  illuminating  address  which 
this  Society  has  ever  received."— Arthur  J.  Balfour. 
(Journal  S.  P.  R.,  16:86). 


170 


PART  II. 
SUBLIMINAL  IMPRESSION. 


ORIENTATION. 

Apart  from  deception,  collusion,1  a  disregard  for  the  limits  of 
chance,2  and  "brain-waves,"3  the  explanation  for  thought-transference 
most  frequently  brought  forward,  especially  by  scientists  who  have  some 
acquaintance  with  psychology,  is  that  of  subliminal  perception  of  signs 
or  signals  involuntarily  given.  It  is  supposed  that  the  reagent,  or  per- 
cipient, unconsciously  receives  impressions  in  the  form  of  signals  or 
signs  offered  involuntarily  by  the  experimenter,  or  agent,  or  some  party 
or  parties  to  the  experiment  who  know  what  the  reagent  is  attempting 
to  guess,  and  that  these  signs  or  signals  may  be  so  slight  that  an  acute 
observer  would  not  perceive  them  and  might  be  willing  to  affirm  their 
absence.  Thus,  in  the  investigation  of  the  famous  "educated  horse," 
Clever  Hans,  Pfungst  found  that  this  horse,  popularly  credited  with  an 
education  equivalent  to  that  of  a  seventh-  or  eighth-grade  boy,  could 
paw  the  answers  to  problems  in  higher  mathematics,  problems  beyond 
the  range  of  many  American  college  graduates,  provided  only  his  fine 
old  master  von  Osten  knew  the  answer  and  was  in  his  field  of  vision.4 
The  pawing  stopped  at  involuntary  signals,  consisting  of  slight  changes 
in  posture  and  expression,  so  slight  that  no  observers  had  noticed  them 
and  some  are  yet  skeptical  of  their  existence.     And,  concerning  the  re- 


*Tuckett:  The  Evidence  for  the  Supernatural.  London:  Paul,  1911,  Appendix 
R,  PP  369-399;  also  Gurney:  Proceedings,  S.  P.  R.,  1888-9,  5:269-270;  Minot : 
North  American  Review,  1895,  160:222  ff . ;  Lehmann :  Auberglaube  und  Zauberei, 
2te  Aufg.,  Stutt.,  1908,  pp.  458-65;  and  Donkin:  Nineteenth  Century  Magazine, 
1882,  12 :  132. 

2Preyer:    Die  Erklarung  des  Gedankenlesens.    Leipzig,  1886,  pp.  49  ff. 

3  Spectator,  January  30,  1869,  pp.  136-7;  Twain:  "Mental  telegraphy,"  Har- 
pers Monthly,  1891,  84:100;  Crookes:  Part  of  the  Presidential  Address  delivered 
to  the   British   Association   at    Bristol,   Sept.,    1898.     Proceedings  S.   P.   R.,   1898, 

14 : 3-4- 

4  Vide,  Pfungst :  Das  Pferd  des  Herrn  von  Osten.  Leipzig,  1907 ;  or  the 
English  translation  under  the  title  of  Clever  Hans,  which  bears  a  preface  by  an 
American  and  an  introduction  by  a  German,  both  psychologists  of  the  first  rank. 

New  York:  Holt,  191 1- 

171 


172  SUBLIMINAL  IMPRESSION 

markable  feats  of  mind-reading  performed  by  little  Beulah  Miller  of 
Rhode  Island,  Professor  Miinsterberg,  who  conducted  a  number  of  ex- 
periments with  her,  says,  "I  think  everything  can  be  explained  through 
her  subconscious  noticing  of  unintended  signs.  But  the  signs  which  she 
receives  are  not  noticed  by  her  consciously.  She  is  not  aware  of  them; 
they  go  to  her  brain  or  to  her  subconscious  mind  and  work  from  there 
on  her  conscious  mind.  .  .  .  [Her]  successes  turn  into  complete  failures 
as  soon  as  neither  the  mother  nor  the  sister  is  present  in  the  room  .  .  . 
The  good  results  stop  entirely  when  Beulah  is  blind- folded."  5 

If  this  is  a  legitimate  explanation  the  psychological  laboratory 
might  be  expected  to  provide  methodical  proof  of  the  influence  of  "sub- 
liminal impression."  Some  of  the  professional  literature,  indeed,  does 
supply  support  to  this  principle,  in  statements  from  psychologists  of 
high  rank,  in  reports  of  investigations  of  which  the  support  is  a  by- 
product, and  in  a  few  reports  of  investigations  in  which  the  problem 
was  directly  attacked. 

The  first  good  account  of  this  hypothesis  with  some  notice  of  its 
older  exponents  and  its  warrant  in  fact  was  given  by  Sir  William  Ham- 
ilton. " 

Lipps  speaks  of  unconscious  psychical  stimuli.7 

Carpenter  says,  "There  seems  no  inherent  improbability  in  the  sup- 
position that  the  power  of  intuitively  interpreting  the  indications  invol- 
untarily furnished  by  expression  of  the  countenance,  gesture,  manner, 
etc.,  so  as  to  divine  what  is  passing  in  the  mind  of  another  person,  may 
be  greatly  intensified"  8  in  certain  mental  conditions  or  in  certain  in- 
dividuals ;  and  he  has  given  wide  currency  to  Laycock's  concept  of 
"Unconscious  Cerebration."  ° 

James  R.  Angell 10  points  out  that  in  perception  we  are  always 
aware  of  the  "fringe"  or  background  of  consciousness,  of  sense  activi- 
ties other  than  those  we  speak  of  as  being  perceived,  and  that  this 
"fringe"  constitutes  a  consciousness  of  particular  things  present  to  the 
sense. 

Kiilpe  ll  shows  that  for  the  adult  consciousness  a  content  may  be 


5  Miinsterberg  :     Psychology  and  Social  Sanity.     New  York  :    Doubleday,  1914, 
pp.  162-4. 

6  Hamilton :    Lectures  on  Metaphysics.     Boston,  1859,  pp.  241  ff. 

7  Lipps :     Grundtatsachen  des  Seelenlebens.    Bonn,  1883,  S.  125. 

8  Carpenter :    Mesmerism,   Spiritualism,  &c,  1895,  pp.  54-55. 

9  Carpenter:    Quarterly  Review,  1871,   131:316  ff. ;    also  Principles  of  Mental 
Physiology.     New  York,  1886,  ch.  XIII. 

10  Angell :    Psychology,  New  York,  1909,  p.  151. 

11  Kiilpe :    Outlines  of  Psychology.     London.   1901,  p.  291. 


ORIENTATION  173 

analyzed  into  "unconscious,"  yet  psychic,  components,  and  that  after 
analysis  the  parts  can  be  recognized  by  introspection.  This  "uncon- 
sciousness" is  a  characteristic  of  attention,  not  of  "fusion"  as  is  the  case 
in  hearing  a  "clang"  of  musical  sounds. 

Jastrow  and  Nuttall 12  performed  experiments  to  determine  the  ex- 
istence of  a  magnetic  sense,  and  found  in  their  first  series  of  800  experi- 
ments that  the  faintly  audible  molecular  crepitation  and  click  caused  by 
magnetising  and  demagnetising  the  magnet  had  been  unconsciously  used 
as  a  basis  for  forming  the  judgment  by  the  reagents,  whose  Right  cases 
indicated  an  influence  beyond  chance. 

Stout 13  grants  a  mental  process  taking  place  below  the  threshold  of 
consciousness  and  says,  "There  is  no  reason  why  the  slight  sensory  indi- 
cations operative  in  so-called  thought-transference  should  be  exclusively 
muscular  or  auditory.  And  it  is  quite  probable  psychologically  that  sen- 
sory indications  may  operate  without  being  discerned  by  the  person 
whom  they  influence." 

Peirce  and  Jastrow  "  found  in  experiments  on  sensible  discrimina- 
tion that  subliminal  differences  in  brightness,  although  unrecognized, 
were  clearly  effective  in  determining  the  judgments. 

Donaldson,16  after  quoting  the  immediately  preceding  research, 
says,  "Differences  too  small  to  be  discriminated  may  still  influence  our 
reactions,  and  it  is  thus  seen  that  among  effective  stimuli  there  must  also 
be  included  those  which  we  do  not  recognize." 

Eckener  1S  showed  that  when  a  minimal  sound  becomes  subjectively 
inaudible,  the  reagent  is  still  in  many  cases  able  to  tell  when  the  stimu- 
lus is  interrupted,  and  observed  that  a  stimulus  can  still  affect  conscious- 
ness although  quite  unperceived. 

Stratton  17  points  out  that  since  the  weights  of  100  and  102  grams 
are  absolutely  indistinguishable,  when  hefted,  and  the  weights  of   102 


12  Jastrow  and  Nuttall:     Proc.  Am.  S.P.R.,  Series  1,  1:116-126. 

Concerning  this  series  of  experiments,  Tuckett  (Evidence  for  the  Super- 
natural, p.  505)  says:  "One  could  not  have  a  better  example  both  of  the  impor- 
tance of  subconscious  impressions  received  through  the  senses,  and  of  the  difficulty 
of  excluding  fallacies  in  telepathic  experiments." 

13  Stout :    Hibbert  Journal,  2 :  47,  62. 

14  Peirce  and  Jastrow :  On  Small  Differences  of  Sensation.  Memoirs  Nafi 
Acad.  Sci.,  Washington,  1884,  3  :  73-83. 

15  Donaldson :    The  Growth  of  the  Brain.     London,  1895,  p.  292. 

16  Eckener :  Ueber  die  Schwankungen  in  der  Auffasung  minimaler  Sinnes-- 
reize.     Philos.  Stud.,  1892,  8:364-5. 

17  Stratton :  Experimental  Psychology  and  its  Bearing  upon  Culture.  New 
York,   1903,  pp.  84  ff. 


174  SUBLIMINAL   IMPRESSION 

and  104  grams  are  likewise  indistinguishable,  each  pair  of  impressions 
feeling  just  alike,  and  since  the  weights  of  100  and  104  grams  are  clearly 
distinguishable  (the  threshold  of  distinguishable  difference  being  2.5 
grams  for  a  weight  of  100  grams)  "the  sensations  arising  from  the 
weights  of  100  and  102  grams  are  really  different,  although  the  differ- 
ence is  imperceptible." 

Moore  18  in  an  interesting  and  important  research  had  his  reagents, 
in  one  series  of  experiments,  observe  series  of  five  geometrical  figures, 
presented  simultaneously  at  the  rate  of  one-half  second  (exposure  one- 
fourth  second)  and  after  a  varying  number  of  repetitions,  always  less 
than  sufficient  for  certainty,  give  judgment  as  to  whether  there  was  a 
common  figure  in  the  successive  series.  The  reagents  were  often  able 
to  state  with  a  feeling  of  certainty  that  there  was  a  common  figure  but 
they  had  no  idea  as  to  its  form.  Sensations,  indeed,  had  been  rec-ived, 
competent  to  render  correct  judgment,  but  there  was  no  recognition  of 
the  figure  upon  which  the  judgment,  under  conditions  of  satisfactory 
perception,  would  be  based. 

The  writer  10  in  tachistoscopic  experiments  which  made  it  incum- 
bent upon  the  reagent  to  record  as  many  letters  as  possible  from  an  ex- 
posure of  a  12-letter-card  for  .085  seconds,  found  that  letters  not  recog- 
nized as  seen  often  insinuated  themselves  properly  into  the  record.  An 
incipient  or  a  subliminal  impression  resulted  in  more  or  less  vague 
imagery  of  the  letter,  and  from  this  alone  the  record  was  tentatively 
made. 

Rergson  20  reported  that  a  hypnotized  boy  could  read  Arabic  fig- 
ures reflected  in  his  eye  when  their  total  heights  could  not  have  been 
more  than  1/250  of  an  inch. 

Mrs.  Verrall 21  performed  a  series  of  400  experiments  in  card- 
guessing  in  which  she  drew  the  face  of  the  card  along  the  inner  edge  of 
the  left  thumb,  and  greatly  exceeded  the  limits  of  chance  in  the  number 
of  Right  cases  both  on  the  number  of  pips  and  on  the  whole  card.  Al- 
though during  the  first  hundred  experiments  her  judgment  took  con- 
scious account  of  the  feeling  from  the  thumb,  for  the  remainder  she  was 


18  Moore :    The  process  of  abstraction,   University  of  California  Publications 
in  Psychology,  1910,  1  :  134-5. 

19  Coover :     Formal    Discipline    from    the    Standpoint    of    Experimental    Psy- 
chology, The  Psychological  Monographs,  1916,  No.  87:86,  87,  91. 

20  Bergson :    De  la  simulation  inconsciente  dans  l'etat  d'hypnotisme.     Revue 
Philosophique,  1886,  22:527. 

21  Verrall :    Some  experiments  on  the  supernormal  acquisition  of  knowledge. 
Proceed.  S.  P.  R.,  1895,  n:  175-185. 


ORIENTATION 


175 


not  conscious  of  the  process  and  the  cards  regularly  came  to  her  mind 
as  visual  impressions.  In  another  series  of  280  guesses  while  looking  at 
the  back  of  the  card  her  success  was  equally  marked,  although  upon 
close  examination  no  marks  nor  indications  on  the  backs  could  be  found ; 
and  since  the  success  fell  off  in  guessing  with  closed  eyes,  she  suspected 
that  the  stamping  of  the  pictures  and  pips  on  the  cards  may  have  pro- 
duced indications  on  the  backs,  which  were  subliminally  perceived. 

Dr.  Sauvaire  22  suggested  to  a  hypnotized  girl  that  there  was  a  por- 
trait on  the  back  of  a  certain  card  (the  King  of  Clubs)  and  that  she 
would  still  see  the  portrait  after  she  was  awakened.  This  she  did,  after 
searching  out  the  card  from  a  shuffled  pack,  by  means  of  some  mark  of 
identification  not  visible  to  other  persons;  and,  since  she  repeated  the 
feat  of  finding  a  card  in  another  pack  bearing  the  same  portrait,  which 
was  also  the  King  of  Clubs,  the  mark  of  identification  must  have  been 
a  subliminal  impression  (tactual  or  visual)  of  the  face  of  the  card  which 
at  no  time  was  turned  toward  her,  or  toward  the  light,  Dr.  Sauvaire  sus- 
pecting that  she  saw  through  the  card. 

Perhaps  reference  should  also  be  made  to  a  few  classical  illustra- 
tions of  the  influence  of  subliminal  or  unnoticed  impressions  upon  re- 
productive processes,  as  well  as  upon  judgment. 

Scripture23  (1)  showed  pairs  of  words  and  Japanese  signs,  as 
Hana-AB,  and  Blume-AB.  Then  the  words  were  shown  alone  and  the 
reagent  recorded  any  word  that  seemed  associated  with  them.  In  this 
case  Hana  often  called  up  Blume,  and  Blume  Hana ;  '%.  e.,  a  word  would 
come  into  mind  through  an  unconscious  and  absent  connection. 

(2)  He  also  showed  to  reagents  pictures  and  small  signs;  the  lat- 
ter were  not  seen  clearly  since  the  picture  was  shown  for  but  a  brief  in- 
terval. Then  these  signs  were  shown.  Many  images  associated  with 
them  corresponded  to  the  pictures  upon  which  they  were  printed ;  i.  e., 
an  unnoticed  element  of  the  situation,  when  focal  in  attention,  revived 
the  situation. 

Jerusalem24  reports  an  interesting  case  of  a  "Feldmarshalllieuten- 
ant"  who  while  at  work  with  his  maps  at  a  table  had  a  sudden  vision  of 
a  girl  leading  an  old  man ;  details  of  vision  clear,  whole  scene  persistent. 
The  garb  suggested  the  Orient,  and  then  he  remembered  that  he  had 


22  Sauvaire :     Observations,    d'hyperesthesie    des   sens    dans   l'etat    hypnotique. 
Revue  Philosophique,  Paris,  1887,  23 :  333-5. 

23  Scripture :    Ueber  den  associativen  Verlauf  der  Vorstellungen.    Phil.  Stud., 
1892,  7:50-146. 

24  Jerusalem  :    Ein  Beispiel  von  Association  unbewusste  Mittelglieder,  Philo- 
sofhische  Studien,  1894,  10:323-5. 


176  SUBLIMINAL  IMPRESSION 

seen  them  30  years  before ;  but  he  could  not  account  for  the  vivid  and 
persistent  appearance  of  the  scene  until  he  discovered  the  scent  of  the 
Pyrola  uniflora  in  the  flower-glass,  a  flower  he  learned  in  the  Orient  at 
the  time  of  the  scene. 

And  Dr.  Thomas,26  in  Ohrdruf,  gives  another  example  of  the  same 
power  of  unnoticed  stimuli  to  awaken  forgotten  memories  and  call  them 
out  into  the  clear  field  of  consciousness  where  they  are  regarded  as  in- 
truders and  trespassers.  While  a  student  in  Berlin,  in  1861,  one  day  in 
late  autumn  on  his  way  to  college  just  over  the  Ebertsbriicke  his  train 
of  deep  thought  was  suddenly  interrupted  by  vivid  scenes  in  Hiittenthal 
where  he  used  to  live  many  years  before.  Having  to  hurry  to  get  to 
college  in  time,  he  recovered  his  train  of  thought  and  dismissed  the  ex- 
perience from  his  mind.  The  next  morning  at  the  same  place  the  visions 
again  intruded  themselves,  and  so  singular  was  the  experience  that  he 
was  impelled  to  stop  and  investigate  the  cause ;  after  retracing  his  steps 
to  the  point  by  the  bridge  where  the  experience  occurred,  he  discovered 
the  odor  of  Bohemian  coal,  which  had  been  commonly  used  in  Hiitten- 
thal, coming  from  a  ship. 

In  the  psychological  laboratory  a  few  investigations  have  been 
made  to  determine  directly  whether  subliminal  visual  stimuli  influence 
judgment.  Dunlap 26  found  some  indication  that  imperceptible  shad- 
ows exercised  an  influence  upon  the  judgment  of  distance.  The  familiar 
Miiller-Lyer  illusion-figure  was  employed.  In  the  preliminary  series, 
the  horizontal-line  segments  were  drawn  in  black  ink  1  mm.  in  width 
on  a  screen  of  white  bristol-board ;  the  oblique  lines  (arrow-head 
formed)  were  supplied  in  shadows  cast  by  a  variable  light  behind  the 
illumined  card.  Shadows  of  a  square  and  a  circle  were  employed  to  de- 
termine the  necessary  depth  of  shadow ;  rear  illumination  was  decreased 
until  the  reagents  could  not  tell  whether  the  figure  up  was  a  square  or 
a  circle,  before  the  experiments  began.  There  was  evidence  that  the  il- 
lusion was  caused  by  the  imperceptible  shadows,  although  certain  errors 
were  known  not  to  be  excluded.  In  the  main  series  an  electric  arc  light 
was  used,  by  the  aid  of  a  system  of  mirrors,  for  both  general  illumina- 
tion and  shadows ;  the  latter  being  cast  by  fibers  in  a  frame  screened 
from  the  reagent,  and  accurately  measured  as  to  intensity  by  the  use  of 
an  episkotister.     Great  care  was  taken  by  repeated  testing  to  insure  the 


25  Thomas :    Ein   weiteres   Beispiel  von   Assoziation    durch   eine   Geruchemp- 
findung  als  unbewusstes  Mittelglied.    Zeitschrift  fur  Psychologic,  1896,  12:60-61. 

26  Dunlap :     Effect   of   imperceptible    shadows   on    the   judgment    of   distance. 
Psychological  Review,   1900,  7  :  43s 


ORIENTATION 


177 


imperceptibility  of  the  shadows.  The  author  concluded  that  his  results, 
from  four  reagents,  "strongly  suggest  that  the  imperceptible  illusion- 
figure  is  active  in  producing  psychical  results,  but  for  the  sake  of  con- 
clusiveness additional  experiments  should  be  carried  out"  under  modi- 
fied conditions,  since  the  importance  of  the  question  requires  "the  maxi- 
mum of  careful  investigation  before  we  dare  call  it  settled." 

Titchener  and  Pyle  2T  reported  the  results  of  a  repetition  and  exten- 
sion of  Dunlap's  work,  likewise  using  the  Muller-Lyer  illusion-figure, 
and  concluded  "that  these  subliminal  shadows,  even  raised  almost  to  the 
limit  of  perceptibility,  have  no  influence  whatsoever  upon  the  judgments 
of  distance  passed  by  five  observers.  ...  It  follows  from  the  whole  in- 
vestigation that  if  the  subconscious  is  to  be  received  into  experimental 
psychology  at  all,  it  must  find  some  other  means  of  access  than  these 
imperceptible  shadows." 

Helen  M.  Mangro  and  Dr.  Margaret  F.  Washburn  2S  following  the 
suggestion  of  both  preceding  investigations,  conducted  1,370  experi- 
ments with  the  Muller-Lyer  illusion-figure,  substituting,  however,  faint 
penciled  lines  for  the  shadows.  The  figures  were  held  "at  such  a  dis- 
tance from  the  observer  that  the  pencil  lines  were  just  not  visible."  The 
tests  were  made  on  ten  fairly  practiced  observers.  "It  seems  improba- 
ble," they  concluded,  "that  the  lines  .  .  .  had  any  influence  upon  the 
judgments,  except  possibly  in  .  .  .  two  cases.  Our  results  are  thus  in 
accord  with  those  of  Titchener  and  Pyle." 

Perhaps  the  most  suggestive  experiments,  however,  from  the  psy- 
chical research  point  of  view,  were  carried  out  by  Sidis,29  who  took  his 
depaiture  from  phenomena  found  in  the  dissociation  of  personality. 
"Now,"  he  says,  "if  the  hyperaesthetic,  subwaking  self  and  the  waking 
self-consciousness,  their  inter-relations  and  their  inter-communications, 
subsist  also  in  normal  life,  as  they  most  certainly  do  in  the  states  of  hyp- 
nosis, automatic-writing  and  crystal-gazing — if  they  subsist,  I  say,  also 
in  the  life  of  every  man,  we  ought  to  find  it  out  by  experiments.  We 
oughi  to  find  that  sensory  impressions  that  lie  outside  the  range  of  sensi- 
bility of  the  waking  self,  but  within  the  range  of  the  sub-waking  self, 
that  such  sensory  impressions  will  still  be  transmitted  to  the  primary 


27  Titchener  and  Pyle :    The  effect  of  imperceptible  shadows  on  the  judgment 
of  distance.     Am.  Jr.  of  Psychology,  1907,  18:388. 

28  Mangro  and  Washburn :    The  effect  of  imperceptible  lines  on  the  judgment 
of  distance.    Am.  Jr.  of  Psychology,  1908,  19:242. 

29  Sidis :      The     Psychology    of     Suggestion.     New     York,     1898,    ch.     XVII, 
pp.  162  ff. 


178  SUBLIMINAL  IMPRESSION 

self.30    The  guesses  of  the  subject  must  rise  far  above  the  dead  level  of 
chance.  .  .  .  And  such  is  actually  the  case."     (p.  165). 

"The  first  set  of  experiments  I  made  on  myself.  My  right  eye  is 
amblyopic;  it  sees  very  imperfectly:  for  it,  things  are  enshrouded  in  a 
mist.  When  the  left  eye  is  closed  and  a  book  is  opened  before  me  I  am 
unable  to  tell  letter  from  figure;  I  see  only  dots,  rows  of  them,  all  in- 
distinct, hazy,  oscillating,  appearing  and  disappearing  from  my  field  of 
vision.  When  a  single  letter  or  figure  is  presented  to  my  right  eye,  I 
see  only  a  black  dot,  as  a  kernel  surrounded  by  a  film  of  mist. 

"I  asked  Mr.  B.  to  make  twenty-five  slips  and  write  down  on  each 
slip  four  characters— letters,  figures,  or  both— in  different  combinations, 
but  so  that  in  all  the  twenty-five  slips  the  number  of  letters  should  equal 
the  number  of  figures.  When  a  slip  was  presented  to  my  right  eye,  the 
other  being  closed,  I  had  to  guess  which  of  the  characters  was  letter 
and  which  was  figure.  When  the  first  series  of  twenty-five  was  ended 
the  slips  were  shuffled,  and  a  second  series  began.  ...  I  made  two 
groups  of  experiments  with  two  series  in  each  group.  Each  series  con- 
sisted of  a  hundred  experiments,  so  that  there  were  four  hundred  ex- 
periments in  all."    This  class  of  experiments  was  called  Class  A. 

RESULTS. 

General  Secondary 

First   Group                            Experi-  Character  Chance  Sight 

ments  Guessed  % 

1st   Series    100  68  50  '8 

2d  Series 100  72  50  22 

Second  Group 

1st  Series  100  7°  5°  20 

2d  Series  100  76  So  26 

Totals    400  286    71.5%         so  21.5 

"In  the  first  series  of  the  first  group,  out  of  one  hundred  characters 
sixty-eight  were  correctly  guessed.  Since  there  were  only  two  guesses — 
letter  or  figure — 50%  must  be  subtracted,  as  so  much  might  have  been 
due  to  mere  chance  ( we  shall  find,  however,  from  our  other  experiments 
that  the  percentage  subtracted  is  too  high)  ;  18%  thus  remains  in  favor 
of  messages  coming  from  the  secondary  self — in  other  words,  18%  is 
left  in  favor  of  secondary  sight. 

"Out  of  four  hundred  experiments  made,  the  general  character  was 
guessed  two  hundred  and  eighty-six  times,  which  gives  71.5%;  sub- 
tracting 50%,  we  have  21.5%  in  favor  of  secondary  sight. 

30  The  italics  are  inserted  by  the  writer. 


ORIENTATION 


179 


"Figures  often  speak  more  eloquently,  more  convincingly,  than  vol- 
umes. The  results  of  the  correct  answers  as  to  the  general  nature  of 
the  character  due  to  secondary  sight  are  far  below  the  actual  one,  for 
in  subtracting  50%  we  subtracted  too  much,  as  our  experiments  will 
show  farther  on ;  still  they  were  so  striking  that  I  communicated  them 
to  Professor  James  and  he  was  kind  enough  to  encourage  me  in  my 
work,  and  advised  me  to  pursue  the  inquiry  further  in  the  same  direc- 
tion." 

Then  followed  experiments  somewhat  modified : 

In  Class  B,  five  letters  (A,  B,  E,  N,  T)  and  five  digits  {2,  4,  5,7,9) 
were  chosen,  and  each  capital  or  digit  was  written  on  a  separate  card. 
Sidis  was  again  reagent,  looked  with  his  amblyopic  eye,  and  guessed 
each  time  one  of  those  ten  particular  characters.  "Now  here  each  guess 
could  be  either  general  or  both  particular  and  general,  or  fail  altogether. 
When  ...  for  instance,  I  took  5  for  7,  or  E  for  TV,  I  guessed  rightly 
the  general  nature  only  of  the  character  shown.  When  I  gave  the  cor- 
rect name  I  guessed,  of  course,  both  the  particular  and  the  general  na- 
ture. When,  however,  I  mistook  a  letter  for  a  figure  or  a  figure  for  a 
letter,  I  failed,  and  failed  completely." 

In  Class  C,  the  same  ten  characters  were  put  down,  one  on  each 
card,  "in  faint  outlines,"  and  each  of  eight  subjects  with  normal  vision 
was  required  to  guess  the  particular  letter  on  the  card  which  was  pre- 
sented at  such  a  distance  "that  the  character  was  outside  his  range  of 
vision ;  he  saw  nothing  but  a  mere  dot,  blurred,  and  often  disappearing  al- 
together. The  subject  was  told  that  there  were  ten  cards  in  the  pack, 
that  the  number  of  letter  cards  was  equal  to  that  of  the  figure  cards, 
but  he  was  not  told  the  particular  names  of  the  characters.  Each  time 
a  card  was  shown  the  subject  had  to  give  some  particular  name  of  char- 
acter he  took  that  dot  to  be.  'They  are  all  alike,  mere  blurred  dots,' 
complained  the  subjects.  'No  matter,'  I  answered ;  'just  give  any  letter 
or  figure  that  rises  in  your  mind  on  seeing  that  dot.'  " 

In  Class  D,  the  letters  (hereafter,  B,  H,  K,  U,  Z)  and  digits  were 
printed  on  the  cards  in  heavy  Gothic  type  about  6.3  mm.  in  height,  the 
lines  1  mm.  in  thickness,  and  for  the  first  time  were  well  formed  and 
uniform.  These  experiments  were  made  with  20  quite  different  subjects 
who  were  told  that  there  were  five  figure  cards  and  five  letter  cards,  but 
were  not  told  the  particular  names  of  the  characters.  Two  series  with 
ten  experiments  each  were  given  each  subject  separately.  "The  subject 
was  placed  at  such  a  distance  from  the  card  that  the  character  shown 
was   far  out  of  his   range  of  vision    [no  distance  is  given].     He  saw 


180  SUBLIMINAL  IMPRESSION 

nothing  but  a  dim,  blurred  spot  or  dot."  The  subject  was  required  to 
name  some  particular  character  which  that  particular  dot  shown  might 
be.     "It  is  nothing  but  mere  guess,"  commented  the  subjects. 

In  Class  E  the  subjects  and  procedure  were  the  same ;  but  the  sub- 
jects were  told  what  the  particular  characters  were. 

In  the  following  table  the  results  are  brought  together : 


TABLE  LVII1 

.     SIDIS'  RESULTS. 

No.  of 

Right 

Per  cent 

Right 

Chance 

Guesses 

Gen.  Par. 

Gen.     Par. 

Gen.     Par. 

Class  B 

. . .     400 

273     188 

68.2      47 

50        10 

Class  C 

. . .     400 

255      92 

637      23 

So          2.8 

Class  D 

,     400 

270     103 

675      25.8 

50          2.8 

Class  E 

,  .  .     400 

291     139 

72.8      34.7 

50        10 

Gen.  Par. 

47.6  370 

40.5  20.2 

43-8  22.9 

43-7  24.7 

These  values  under  Secondary  Sight  need  revision.  On  p.  372,  in  the 
Appendix,  Sidis  gives  his  explanation  of  the  formula  on  the  succeeding  page  which 
is  used  throughout ;  and  it  is  evidently  wrong.  It  follows,  with  application  to  the 
results  in  Class  B : 

y  ■=  the  correct  general  guesses  due  to  secondary  sight 
x  =  the  correct  particular  guesses  due  to  secondary  sight 
p  =  the  correct  general  guesses  due  to  chance 
p    =  the  correct  particular  guesses  due  to  chance 

(.P  +  y)  +  (/>!+  x)  =68.2  (The  %  Right  as  to  general  character  in  Class  B)   [1] 

(/>    +  x)  =  47  (The   %   Right  as  to  particular  character)                 [2] 

(P  +  y)                       =21.2  [3] 

p  =  y,             .  • .    y  =  10.6  [4] 

/\=i°  [5] 

*  =  37        (Sec.  Sight,  Particular)  [6] 

y  +  x  =  47.6     (Sec.  Sight,  General)  [7] 

"Now,  in  equation  [3],  p  is  50  per  cent,  because  each  guess  has  only  two 
alternatives,  letter  or  figure  [thus  far  all  is  well]  ;  in  other  words,  p  =  y  [here 
lies  the  fallacy!];    hence,  y  =  10.6."    (p.  372). 

By  definition,  p  is  the  correct  general  guesses  due  to  chance,  expressed  in 
per  cent  of  the  whole  number  of  guesses ;  but  if  there  are  any  correct  guesses  due 
to  "secondary  sight,"  this  p  must  be  calculated  upon  the  remaining  number  of 
guesses;  it  is  never  50%,  and  it  has  no  constant  relation  to  y.  The  probability 
of  R  guesses  by  chance  must  be  discriminated  from  the  per  cent  of  all  the  guesses 
which  are  right  by  chance.  Let  us  call  it  p„  ( p  sub  y)  ;  since  there  are  but  two 
general  classes  of  characters  the  probability  of  R  guesses  by  chance  is  50% 
(Pv  =  50%=  .5)  ;  and  since  the  only  field  available  for  R  general  guesses  by 
chance  is  [1  —  (x  +  y)], 

P  =  pv[i  —  (.*  +  y)]- 

Another  error  in  the  formula  is  to  be  found  in  equation   [1]  ;    it  should  not 


ORIENTATION 


181 


'•As  remarked  above,  the  subjects  often  complained  that  they  could 
not  see  anything  at  all ;  that  even  the  black,  blurred,  dim  spot  often  dis- 
appeared from  their  field  of  vision ;  that  it  was  mere  'guessing' ;  that 
they  might  as  well  shut  their  eyes  and  guess.  How  surprised  were  they 
when,  after  the  experiments  were  over,  I  showed  them  how  many  char- 
acters they  guessed  correctly  in  a  general  way,  and  how  many  times 
they  gave  the  full  name  of  the  particular  character  shown! 

contain  p  ,  since  if  a  guess  of  a  particular  character  is  right  by  chance,  the  char- 
acter's general  class  was  either  correctly  determined  by  "secondary  sight,"  in  which 
case  it  is  included  in  y,  or  correctly  guessed  by  chance,  in  which  case  it  is  included 
in  p.    All  pv  then,  is  included  in  (p  +  y).     Hence  the  first  equation  should  be 

p  +  x  +  y  =  Right   General   Guesses. 

Then  p  ,  like  p,  must  be  discriminated  from  the  probability  of  guessing  by 
chance  a  particular  character,  since  it  represents  the  per  cent  of  the  whole  number 
of  guesses  that  have  been  right  as  to  the  particular  character  by  chance.  Let  the 
probability  be  px\  it,  in  this  case  of  10  alternatives,  is  equal  to  10%  or  .1,  or, 
since  it  bears  a  definite  relation  to  p  (every  R  general  guess  due  to  chance  stands 
one  chance  in  five  of  also  being  a  R  particular  guess),  20%  of  p  or  2p,  in  case  the 
general  character  has  not  been  acquired  by  "secondary  sight" ;  in  case  it  has, 
there  are  five  alternatives  and  px  =  .2,  applying  to  y ;    consequently 

/'1  =  .2   (p  +  y). 

This  revision  of  the  formula,  applied  to  the  data  of  Class  B,  changes  the 
results : 

p  +  x  +  y  =  .682  [1] 

P1  +  x         =  .47  t2] 

Subtracting  [2]   from  [1]  P+y — P±=  .212  [3] 

p=.2(p+y)  Ul 

Substituting  [4]   in   [3]  $>{p  +  y)        =  .212  [5] 

p+y         =  .265  [6] 

Subtracting  [6]   from   [1]  x=  .417  =  41.7%  [7] 

p  =  .5[i—(x  +  y)]  [8] 

=  .5  —  .2085  —  .5ji  [9l 

Substituting  in   [6]                          y  —  .5y  =  -265  —  (.5  —  .2085)  =  —  .0265  [10] 

y  =  —  .053  =  —  5-3%  ["] 

We  find  in  favor  of  "secondary  sight"  for  the  particular  character,  41.7% 
of  the  whole  number  of  guesses ;  but  the  negative  quantity  of  y,  apparently  a 
chance  deviation,  seems  competent  to  show  that,  in  this  series  at  least,  there  was 
no  "secondary  sight"   for  the  general   character   alone,   in  operation. 

In  appraising  the  results  of  these  experiments,  therefore,  the  values  deduced 
from  the  formula  must  not  be  taken  at  face  value,  owing  to  errors  in  the  formula, 
y  was  not  10.6%. 


182  SUBLIMINAL  IMPRESSION 

"Now  these  experiments  tend  to  prove  the  presence  within  us  of  a 
secondary  sub-waking  self  that  perceives  things  which  the  primary  wak- 
ing self  is  unable  to  get  at.  The  experiments  indicate  the  interrelation 
of  the  two  selves.  They  show  that  messages  are  sent  up  by  the  second- 
ary to  the  primary  self. 

"Furthermore,  the  results  seem  to  show  that,  in  case  the  particular 
message  fails,  some  abstract  general  account  of  it  still  reaches  the  upper 
consciousness.  An  inhibited  particular  idea  still  reaches  the  primary  self 
as  an  abstract  idea.  An  abstract  general  idea  in  the  consciousness  of 
the  waking  self  has  a  particular  idea  as  its  basis  in  the  sub-waking  self." 
(p.  171). 

"While  the  above-mentioned  experiments  on  secondary  sight  were 
under  way  another  set  of  experiments  was  carried  out  by  me  the  pur- 
pose of  which  was  to  tap  directly  the  suggestibility  of  the  secondary 
self,  and  to  find  out  the  influence  the  subconscious  has  on  the  primary 
consciousness. 

"The  mechanism  of  the  experiments  was  as  follows :  On  slips  of 
paper  I  made  a  series  of  complicated  drawings.  Each  slip  had  a  differ- 
ent pattern.  The  subject  had  to  look  at  the  pattern  of  the  drawing  for 
ten  seconds,  and  then  the  slip  was  withdrawn  and  he  had  to  reproduce 
the  drawing  from  memory — a  task  extremely  difficult.  It  took  him 
about  fifteen  seconds  and  more  before  he  could  make  anything  bearing 
the  slightest  resemblance  to  the  drawing  shown. 

"When  he  finished  the  drawing  an  elongated  cardboard  with  eight 
digits  pasted  in  a  row  was  shown  to  him  and  the  subject  had  to  choose 
whichever  digit  he  pleased.  Now,  on  the  margin  of  each  slip  was  written 
a  digit  contained  in  the  number  of  digits  on  the  cardboard  from  which  the 
subject  had  to  choose.  The  subject,  not  having  the  slightest  suspicion 
of  the  real  purpose  of  the  experiments,  being  perfectly  sure  that  the 
whole  matter  was  concerning  imitation  of  the  drawings  and  being  as- 
sured by  me  that  the  choosing  of  the  digits  on  the  cardboard  was  nothing 
but  a  device  to  'break  up  the  attention'  in  passing  from  one  drawing 
to  another,  and  being  besides  intensely  absorbed  in  the  contemplation 
and  reproduction  of  the  drawing,  which  was  extremely  complicated — the 
subject,  I  say,  wholly  disregarded  the  figure  on  the  margin — he  did  not 
even  notice  it.  I  so  fully  succeeded  in  allaying  all  suspicions  and  dis- 
tracting the  attention  of  the  subjects  that  when  Professor  James  inter- 
rogated one  of  them,  an  intelligent  man,  he  was  amazed  at  the  latter's 
complete  ignorance  as  to  what  was  actually  going  on." 


ORIENTATION 


183 


".  .  .  The  upper  primary  self,  being  completely  absorbed  with  the 
drawing,  did  not  notice  the  figure,  or,  if  it  did,  it  soon  learned  to  disre- 
gard it,  because  he  thought  it  insignificant,  and  because  it  would  only 
distract  his  attention.  But  although  the  figure  was  not  noticed  and  fully 
disregarded  (a  fact  I  was  careful  to  find  out  from  the  subjects  in  an  in- 
direct way),  it  still  impressed  the  sense  organ,  reached  the  secondary 
self,  which  took  it  as  a  suggestion,  sending  it  up  as  a  message  to  the 
primary  self  or  personality  and  influencing  the  latter's  choice.  This 
choice  suggestion  is  strikingly  analogous  to  post-hypnotic  suggestion.    .   .   . 

"Before  giving  the  results  let  me  say  a  few  words  as  to  the  classifi- 
cation of  the  experiments.  When  I  started  my  first  experiments  of  this 
kind  a  suspicion  crept  into  my  mind  that  it  might  be  fully  possible  that 
in  case  a  suggestion  given  did  not  succeed  it  might  still  succeed  partially 
as  mediate  suggestion,  by  arousing  some  association  which  will  be 
obeyed.  For  instance,  in  giving  6  as  a  suggestion,  6  itself  might  not  be 
chosen,  but  some  number  that  succeeds  or  precedes  it,  such  as  5  or  7,  or 
possibly  a  numeral  next  to  the  suggested  one  in  place,  say  /  or  2,  for  I 
arranged  my  figures  on  the  cardboard  in  such  a  way  as  to  break  up  the 
natural  succession  of  the  digits.  I  was  therefore  careful  to  make  two 
separate  classes  for  these  two  kinds  of  association  suggestions— namely, 
suggestion  by  locality  and  suggestion  by  numbers,  which  we  may  term 
locality  and  number  suggestions.  The  results  of  my  experiments  showed 
me  the  mediate  suggestion  was  here  of  but  little  importance. 

"I  made  1000  experiments  and  operated  with  20  subjects,  of  which 
16  were  fresh  ones,  not  having  taken  part  in  any  of  my  other  experi- 
ments. 

"The  figures  on  the  cardboard  were  arranged  thus :    26471538. 

Results. 
Out  of  the  1000  experiments  the  number  which  had  been  on  the 
drawing  was  guessed  394  times.     Since  the  chance  of  guessing  right 
is  12.5%  or  .125,  x  (the  influence  of  causes  besides  chance)  =  .394  — 

[.125(1—  *)]=  307%: 

*=-394—  [.125(1—*)] 
=  .269  +  .125* 
x  —  .125*=  .269 
.875*  =  .269 

x  =  .307  =  30.7% 

(Sidis*  formula,  p.  377,  makes  .;-  =  32.i). 
"How  shall  we  explain  the  fact  that  in  our  experiments  the  percent- 
age of  correct  guesses  is  far  above  the  one  due  to  chance  alone?    Two 


184  SUBLIMINAL  IMPRESSION 

theories  are  on  the  field  to  account  for  this  fact :  one  is  the  well-known 
unconscious  cerebration,  and  the  other  is  my  own  point  of  view,  or  what 
I  may  call  the  psycho-physiological  theory. 

"On  the  theory  of  unconscious  cerebration,  each  figure  shown 
outside  the  range  of  vision  made  an  impression  on  the  retina.  This 
impression  was  transmitted  to  the  sensorium,  to  the  central  ganglia  of 
the  brain,  the  occipital  lobes,  exciting  there  physiological  processes  that 
are  not  strong  enough  to  rise  above  the  threshold  of  consciousness. 
In  short,  each  figure  stimulated  the  peripheral  sense  organ,  giving  rise 
to  a  central  but  unconscious  physiological  process.  Now,  according  to 
the  theory  of  unconscious  cerebration,  it  was  this  unconscious  physio- 
logical process  that  helped  the  subject  to  form  correct  guesses. 

"The  psycho-physiological  theory,  while  agreeing  with  the  theory 
of  unconscious  cerebration  as  to  the  physiological  account,  makes  a  step 
further.  Each  figure  certainly  made  an  impression  on  the  peripheral 
sense  organ  and  induced  central  physiological  processes,  but  these  proc- 
esses had  their  psychical  accompaniments.  Far  from  being  mere 
mechanical,  unconscious  work,  these  physiological  processes  were  accom- 
panied by  consciousness ;  only  this  consciousness  was  present  not  to  the 
upper,  but  to  the  lower  subconscious  self.  ...  In  short,  the  percentage 
of  correct  guesses  in  our  experiments  can  not  be  accounted  for  on  the 
theory  of  unconscious  cerebration ;  there  must  therefore  have  been 
conscious  perception. 

"Furthermore,  to  have  a  correct  general  idea  of  a  scarcely  percep- 
tible dot  as  being  letter  or  figure,  there  must  evidently  be  some  percep- 
tion of  the  particular  traits  of  the  dot ;  there  must  be  a  subconscious 
perception  of  the  particular  letter  or  figure."    (pp.  177-8). 

I  have  quoted  Sidis  liberally  for  the  reason  that  his  experiments 
are  so  highly  suggestive  of  ways  in  which  judgment  might  be  influenced, 
and  that  they  offer  a  means  of  studying  psychical  phenomena  with 
psychological  profit.  Professor  James  wrote  an  introduction  to  the  book, 
in  which  he  says:  "By  other  [these]  ingenious  experiments  Dr.  Sidis 
tries  to  show  that  the  'subliminal'  or  'ultra-marginal'  portion  of  the  mind 
may  in  normal  persons  distinguish  objects  which  the  attentive  senses  find 
it  impossible  to  name.  These  latter  experiments  are  incomplete,  but  they 
open  the  way  to  a  highly  important  psychological  investigation."     (p.  vi). 

If  we  treat  the  data  in  Classes  B,  C,  D,  and  E,  with  revised  formulae 
we  find  values  which  we  may  compare  with  the  probable  per  cent  (/>), 


ORIENTATION  185 

and  the  limit  of  chance  deviation  (L).31  In  the  following  table,  x/L 
and  y/L  indicate  how  many  times  the  "secondary  sight"  value  (.r  or  y) 
contains  the  Limit  of  Chance  Deviation,  and  are  therefore  measures  of 
the  reliability  of  the  x  and  y  values ;  x  is  the  influence  beyond  chance 
causing  R  guesses  of  the  particular  character;  y  is  the  influence  beyond 
chance  causing  R  guesses  with  respect  to  the  general  character  of  the 
symbols : 

TABLE  LIX. 

Sidis'  Values  Revised. 
Particular  Right.  General  Right. 

x  p  L  x/L  y  p  L  y/L 

Class  B    41.7  10  6.4  6.5  -5.3  50  10.6  0.0 

Class   C    20.3  2.8  3.5  5.7  7.1  50  10.6  0.7 

Class  D   23.3  2.8  3.5  6.7  11. 7  50  10.6  1.1 

Class   E    25.2  10  6.4  3.9  20.2  50  10.6  1.9 

Concerning  the  influence  working  for  Right  guesses  with  respect 
to  the  general  character  of  the  symbols,  the  table  indicates  that  in 
Classes  B  and  C  it  is  negligible  if  not  absent,  and  in  Classes  D  and  E 
it  is  small,  but,  perhaps,  unquestionable.  Since  it  is  the  y  values  upon 
which  the  hypothesis  of  an  elaboration  or  classification,  below  the  thresh- 
old of  conscious  activity,  of  particulars  received  as  subliminal  impres- 
sions, depends,  it  would  be  interesting  to  know  whether  the  digits  and 
capitals  differed  in  any  noticeable  respect  in  the  font  of  Gothic  type 
from  which  they  were  printed ;  the  values  of  y  become  distinguishable 
from  chance  variation  only  in  the  series  in  which  these  printed  letters 
were  used  (D  and  £).  Should  the  digits  be  narrower  or  shorter  or 
lighter  than  the  capitals,32  for  instance,  the  classification  would  not  need 
to  be  assumed  to  depend  upon  a  subliminal  perception  of  the  particular 
characters  and  consequently  would  not  necessarily  involve  a  more  subtle 
process  than  the  suggestion  effected  by  the  subliminal  impression  of  the 
symbols  which  leads  to  Right  Guesses  of  the  particular  characters.  This 
matter  of  subliminal  elaboration  needs  further  careful  investigation. 

BiL  =  3   & 

*J    n 

32  We  reproduce  here  the  same  letters  and  digits  as  were  used,  in  a  similar 
font  of  Gothic  type.  The  digits  are  shorter,  narrower,  and  lighter  in  the  line  than 
the  capitals : 

BH  KUZ245  7  9 

Fig.  i.     Characters  used  by  Sidis. 


186  SUBLIMINAL  IMPRESSION 

The  influence  working  for  Right  Guesses  of  the  particular  symbols. 
on  the  other  hand,  is  definite  and  unquestionable.  But,  as  Dunlap  sug- 
gested, the  influence  of  subliminal  impressions  upon  the  judgment  is  an 
hypothesis  of  so  great  importance,  for  psychology  in  general,  and  for 
psychical  research  in  particular,  that  we  must  be  very  careful  in  veri- 
fying the  fact.  Many  subtle  errors  will  inevitably  be  encountered  in  so 
difficult  a  research,  and  safety  necessarily  lies  in  caution.  The  precise 
degree  of  invisibility,  since  there  are  no  real  thresholds  outside  of  con- 
ventional concepts,  needs  to  be  determined,  for  a  visual  stimulus,  and 
the  fluctuation  of  acuity  and  the  effect  of  repeated  trials  upon  accommo- 
dation must  be  reckoned  with  in  establishing  and  maintaining  conditions 
of  subliminal  impression.  Introspective  check  would  be  of  the  highest 
value,  if  the  reagents  are  capable  of  accurate  introspection;  and  the 
integrity  and  the  scientific  attitude  of  the  reagent  must  be  insured. 
Sufficiently  full  and  accurate  descriptions  of  the  conditions  of  experi- 
mentation should  be  published  in  the  report  of  the  work  to  enable  others 
to  pass  critical  judgment  upon  the  results  or  to  repeat  faithfully  the 
investigation. 

These  suggestions  for  caution  are  not  intended  as  a  criticism  upon 
Dr.  Sidis'  interesting  and  original  experiments  in  the  Harvard  labora- 
tory, for  his  work  was  that  of  the  pioneer  and  altogether  admirable,  but 
as  an  intimation  of  the  relation  our  own  investigation  bears  to  his,  since 
we  sought  a  more  definite  control  of  experimental  conditions.  Our 
estimate  of  the  importance  of  his  work  is  indicated  by  the  fact  that  our 
investigation  was  patterned  after  his. 

Before  turning  to  our  own  work,  however,  we  should  notice  the 
report  of  another  research  which  followed  Dr.  Sidis. 

Stroh,  Shaw,  and  Washburn 33  performed  three  series  of  experi- 
ments, in  the  psychological  laboratory  at  Vassar  College,  which  they 
describe  as  follows:  "In  the  first  of  these,  a  procedure  like  that  of  Sidis 
was  followed.  The  cards  used  bore  each  of  them  one  of  the  first  ten 
letters  of  the  alphabet,  and  they  were  held  at  such  a  distance  that  the 
observers  could  barely  detect  the  letter  as  a  faint  spot  on  the  card.  The 
observer  was  told  that  the  letter  on  the  card  was  one  of  the  letters  from 
A  to  /.  In  a  large  number  of  experiments,  then,  the  probability  would 
be  that  one-tenth  of  the  guesses  at  the  letters  would  be  correct,  if  the 
guessing  was  not  subject  to  any  influence. 


83  Stroh,  Shaw,  and  Washburn  :     A  study  in  guessing.    Am.  Jr.  of  Psychology, 
1908,   19:243-245. 


ORIENTATION  187 

"In  the  second  series,  the  conditions  were  rendered  more  difficult  by 
enclosing  the  letters  in  rectangles.  It  was  thus  made  almost  impossible 
to  be  guided  in  guessing  by  the  general  bulk  of  a  letter, — as,  for  instance, 
B  might  in  the  first  series  be  distinguished  from  /. 

"In  the  third  series,  the  letters  were  whispered  instead  of  being 
shown  on  cards.  It  was  found  necessary  in  this  series  to  rule  out  every 
experiment  where  the  observer  heard  the  slightest  sound  from  the  whis- 
pering. If  anything  at  all  were  heard  it  often  caused  the  letter  to  be 
recognized,  especially  such  letters  as  C,  G.  H,  and  /.  The  experimenter 
would  therefore  give  the  observer  a  'Ready'  signal,  and  then  whisper 
the  letter  so  softly  that  no  sound  whatever  could  be  heard  at  the  distance 
at  which  the  observer  sat." 

Results. 

The  probability  for  Right  guesses  by  chance  in  each  of  the  three 
series  is  10%.  In  Series  I,  individual  reagents  made  from  50  to  330 
guesses  each,  and  their  per  cents  of  R  cases  were:  16,  16,  22,  24,  32,  33, 
38,  38,  46,  48,  51,  55,  74.  Some  of  the  observers  "obtained  so  high  a 
percentage  of  R  guesses  as  to  suggest  that  they  must  have  been  almost 
able  to  read  the  letters,  although  they  declared  in  good  faith  that  they 
could  not." 

In  Series  II,  the  reagents  made  from  50  to  240  guesses  each,  and 
their  per  cents  of  R  cases  were:  8,  18,  21,  24,  34,  37,  63,  67.  In  this 
series  "The  possibility  of  reading  in  the  ordinary  sense  was  much  less, 
...  yet  two  of  the  observers  guessed  right  in  more  than  half  of  the 
cases." 

In  Series  III,  the  reagents  made  from  100  to  600  guesses  each,  and 
their  per  cents  of  R  cases  were:  10,  12,  13,  16,  16,  19,  23,  24,  31,  39. 
In  this  series,  "where  the  letters  were  whispered,  since  every  case  in 
which  the  observer  heard  the  slightest  sound  of  the  whisper  was  ruled 
out,  the  conditions  should  have  made  ordinary  perception  impossible.  It 
is  noteworthy  that  although  no  observer  fell  below  10%  of  R  guesses 
three  reagents  made  little  above  that  amount.  Yet  two  reagents  .  .  . 
show  that  their  guessing  must  have  been  somehow  influenced  quite 
decidedly  in  the  right  direction,  and  the  others  also  give  evidence  of 
such  influence,  though  in  a  less  marked  degree." 

Disregarding  individual  differences,  and  aggregating  the  guesses 
and  the  R  cases  for  the  three  respective  series,  we  get  results  shown  in 
the  following  table ;    x  represents  the  influence  beyond  chance  ;34  p,  the 


34*=%R—  [/>(i—  *)!■ 


X 

P 

L 

x/L 

329 

10 

2.9 

U3 

384 

10 

4-3 

8.9 

i7.8 

10 

2.5 

7-1 

188  SUBLIMINAL   IMPRESSION 

probability  for  R  cases  by  chance ;  L,  the  limit  of  chance  deviation  ;3B 
and  x/L  shows  the  reliability  or  value  of  the  x  magnitudes  ( I  being  zero 
value)  : 

TABLE  LX. 

Results  of  Stroh,   Shaw,  and  Washburn. 
Number  of 
Series  Reagents  Experiments    %R 

1 13  1816  39.6 

II 8  890  44.6 

III 10  2556  26.0 

The  last  column  of  the  table  shows  that  the  x  values  are  many 
times  the  range  of  chance  deviation,  and  that  they  decrease  down  the 
series ;  considering  the  amount  of  these  values,  and  the  fact  that  of  the 
31  individual  sets  but  one  falls  below  the  probable  chance  value  (10%) 
in  R  cases,  we  must  recognize  a  strong  and  fairly  general  influence 
beyond  chance  in  the  guessing,  which,  presumably,  is  the  effect  of  sub- 
liminal impression.  The  investigators  concluded :  "Our  results,  then 
confirm,  on  the  whole,  those  of  Sidis  and  show  that  with  certain 
observers  at  least  judgments  may  be  influenced  in  the  direction  of  cor- 
rectness when  the  observer  is  unconscious  that  any  such  influence  is 
present.  Whether  this  effect  is  due  to  a  secondary  self  with  superior 
senses,  as  Sidis  believes,  or  to  a  physiological  result  of  the  stimulus,  too 
slight  to  affect  consciousness  on  its  own  account,  as  it  were,  is  a  ques- 
tion to  which  our  experiments  can  furnish  no  answer." 

But  perhaps  we  are  too  liberal  in  our  estimates,  toward  the 
hypothesis  of  subliminal  influence;  chance  may  not  be  limited  to  the 
theoretical  10%  in  the  Series  I  and  II,  since  the  reagent  might,  volun- 
tarily or  involuntarily  yet  consciously,  make  use  of  some  general  aspects 
of  the  indefinite  stimulus,  and  thus  raise  his  chances  for  R  cases.  For 
example,  suppose  the  letters  were  traced,  as  were  those  of  Sidis,  in 
Class  C,  in  the  form  of  capitals,  then  we  might  have  the  following 
classification : 

B  E  H,     full,  heavy  appearance  of  the  blurred  stimulus,  Chance 33 

C  G  D,     rounded,  open,  appearance  of  the  blurred  stimulus,  Chance 33 

I    J,  long,  narrow,  appearance  of  the  blurred  stimulus,  Chance 50 

If  we  assume  that  the  respective  10  letters  were  exhibited  equally  often, 
and  the  letters  A  and  F  remain  wholly  indefinite  as  stimuli  (Chance  .10), 


™  As  before,  (pp.  85,  185),  L  =  3\'~  ■ 


ORIENTATION 


189 


then,  for  a  long  series  of  experiments  the  chance  of  R  cases  would  be 
raised  to  32%.30  Of  course,  this  method  of  guessing  may  not  have  been 
generally  used.  The  question  is,  was  it  used  at  all?  If  so,  then  our  x 
values  for  Series  I  and  II  are  too  large.  That  this  cause  has  been  oper- 
ative seems  to  be  indicated  by  the  fall  of  the  x/L  value  in  Series  II  below 
that  in  Series  I,  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  square  inscribing  the  let- 
ter, in  Series  II,  would  necessarily  shield  the  stimuli  altogether  from  sim- 
ilar classification,  although  its  influence  would  obviously  be  in  this 
direction.  However,  since  all  conscious  impression  was  ruled  out  in 
Series  III,  which  shows  an  undoubted  influence  beyond  chance,  the  de- 
crease in  the  x/L  value  in  Series  II  might  have  been  caused  by  a  lower- 
ing of  the  stimulus  proper  further  below  the  threshold  of  conscious 
perception,  thus  decreasing  somewhat  its  effectiveness. 

Careful  introspections  and  modification  of  stimuli  may,  in  future 
researches,  definitely  settle  the  questions  raised  by  these  two  investiga- 
tions which  attacked  directly  the  problem  of  the  influence  of  subliminal 
impression  upon  judgment.  In  the  face  of  the  results  the  presumption 
lies  much  in  its  favor ;  but  its  status  will  be  better  assured  when  condi- 
tions, amounts,  and  interpretations,  perhaps,  can  be  confidently  stated. 


as  For  A  and  F, 

.10  X  2  =     .20 

B  D  H, 

■33  X  3  =    .999 

C  G  D, 

■33  X  3  =    .999 

I    J. 

.50  X  2  =  1. 000 

Total. 

3-199 

Average,   .3199  or  31.99%. 


190 


SUBLIMINAL   IMPRESSION 


EXPERIMENTS. 


In  recognition  of  the  importance,  for  Psychical  Research,  of  the 
hypothesis  of  the  influence  of  subliminal  impression  upon  judgment, 
several  series  of  experiments  were  devised  and  carried  out,  under  condi- 
tions of  experimentation  suggested,  directly  or  indirectly,  by  the  investi- 
gations reviewed  above.  The  general  principle  held  in  mind,  however, 
was  a  more  definite  control  of  the  conditions  of  experiment:  (i)  As 
to  objective  conditions,  presentation  of  stimuli  was  controlled  by  the 
use  of  apparatus  permitting  the  measurement  of  the  time  of  exposure; 
the  stimuli  were  uniform,  being  prepared  by  stamping  or  printing  de- 
vices ;  and  the'  distance  of  the  reagent  from  the  stimuli  was  made  defi- 
nite. (2)  As  to  subjective  conditions,  the  instructions  made  provision 
for  an  intermediate  grade  of  judgment  based  upon  partial  perception; 
and  introspections  were  required  of  some  of  the  reagents. 

The  research  was  carried  on  during  two  school-years,  1914-15  and 
1915-16,  with  the  assistance  of  students  selected  from  the  large  classes 
in  General  Psychology.  There  were  118  reagents;  their  vision  safely, 
for  our  purpose,  assumed  to  be  normal.  And  15,441  experiments,  dis- 
tributed according  to  experimental  conditions  in  the  following  table, 
were  performed : 

TABLE  LXI. 

Experiments   on   Subliminal   Impression. 

1914-15  1915-1° 

Number  of  Number  of 

Re-    Experi- 
agents  ments 

12         1 120 


Div.  I.   Wirth-Tachistoscope 
Div.  II.  Wundt-Tachistoscope 

"  (Foveal  Vision) 
Div.  III.  "  (Peripheral  "  ) 
Div.  IV.  (Miscellaneous) 


Re-     Experi- 
agents  ments 

26        3027 


Total 

Re-     Experi- 
agents  ments 


38 


4147 


IS 
12 


1870 
954 


1350 
4300 


21        3220 

4°        5254 
19        2820 


Total    39        3944  60        8677  118      15,441 

In  Division  I,  the  Wirthian  tachistoscope  was  used  and  the  time  of 
exposure  was  cut  down  below  the  limen  for  perception  :  in  Division  II,  the 


EXPERIMENTS  WITH    WIRTHIAN   TACHISTOSCOPE  191 

Wundtian  type  of  tachistoscope  was  used  and  with  an  exposure  less  than 
the  reaction-time  of  the  eye  the  distance  was  increased  to  minimal  per- 
ception ;  in  Division  III,  the  stimulus  exhibited  in  a  Wundtian  tachisto- 
scope was  presented  to  peripheral  vision  only;  in  the  first  two  divisions 
it  was  presented,  as  in  preceding  investigations,  to  foveal  vision. 

Division  I.    With  the  Wirthian  Tachistoscope. 

In  the  first  division  of  experiments,  we  used  a  Wirthian  tachisto- 
scope with  a  revolving  disc  97.5  cm.  in  diameter.  Adjustable  shutters 
over  a  window  on  the  edge  of  the  disc  permitted  the  slit  through  which 
the  stimulus  appeared  to  be  varied  in  width  for  the  purpose  of  varying 
the  time  of  exposure,  without  changing  the  speed  of  rotation.37  The 
letters  B  H  K  U  Z  and  digits  2  4  5  7  9  were  printed  in  black  from 
rubber  Roman  type  21  mm.  high  3S  upon  cards  which  slipped  into  a 
holder  behind  the  disc,  and  by  means  of  electrically  operated  traps 
dropped  into  position  for  exposure  during  the  revolution  of  the  disc. 
This  position  lay  behind  a  metal  screen,  painted  gray,  uniform  with  the 
disc,  which  prevented  distraction  that  might  be  caused  by  the  visible 
movement  of  the  shutters  through  the  point  of  fixation. 

Procedure. 

The  experimenter  manipulated  the  stimulus  cards  behind  the  ap- 
paratus, rotated  the  disc  by  hand  at  the  rate  of  once  a  second,  gave  a 
pre-signal  about  15  seconds  and  a  signal  about  2  seconds  before  each  stim- 
ulus. The  reagents  sat  4  meters  from  the  disc,  from  which  position  the 
visual  angle  of  the  letters  was  14.36'.  At  the  beginning  of  the  I9I4"I5 
series,  for  reagents  1-12,  the  time  of  exposure  was  set  at  9.5  sigma,  but 
as  practice  effect  increased  the  number  of  twice-underscored  records  it 
was  decreased  to  7.70,  5.70  and  4.90,  the  limen  for  50%  twice-under- 
scored records  being  about  7.70 ;  the  room  was  slightly  darkened  by  the 
drawing  of  blinds,  necessary  to  exclude  shadows  cast  on  the  cards  by 
the  screen  from  cross-light,  but  the  cards  were  well  illuminated.  In 
1915-16,  when  the  apparatus  was  stationed  in  another  room  which  elim- 
inated cross-light  shadows  and  permitted  the  light   from  the  windows 


37  From  the  center  of  the  revolving  disc  to  the  calibration  on  the  shutters 
over  the  center  of  the  letter,  the  distance  is  39-9  cm.,  making  the  circumference 
250cm.  (2jt  X  39.9  =  250).  With  rotation  once  a  second,  then,  250cm.  =  1  second; 
2.5  cm.  =  .01  second  =  10";    2  cm.  =  8ff;    5  mm.  =  2";   etc. 

38  This  reduced  facsimile  of  the  characters  used  as  stimuli  shows  their  form : 

BHKUZ24579 

Fig.  2.     Characters  used  in  the  Wirthian  Tachistoscope. 


192  SUBLIMINAL   IMPRESSION 

back  of  the  reagents  to  fall  directly  upon  the  stimulus,  the  experiments 
began,  for  reagents  13-38,  with  an  exposure  of  I0<J  and  decreased  rapid- 
ly through  80,  60,  4.80,  40,  3.20,  to  2.80,  2.6a,  and  20,  with  the  limen  of 
50%  twice-underscored  records  at  about  4.60;  71.1%  of  all  records 
from  these  reagents  were  made  on  exposures  less  than  30. 

The  reagents  were  instructed  to  look  closely  at  the  stimulus,  im- 
mediately after  exposure  to  record  their  perception  of  the  letter  or  digit, 
or,  in  case  none  was  perceived,  to  record  a  guess  of  a  letter  or  digit. 
The  guess  was  not  to  be  formed  by  any  scheme  or  rule  but  was  to  be 
purely  spontaneous.  In  case  part  of  the  stimulus  was  sufficiently  seen 
to  influence  the  guess,  as  of  a  curved  or  a  straight-line  letter,  the  record 
was  to  be  underscored  once,  since  it  is  a  partial  perception  or  an  infer- 
ence with  the  range  of  error  in  guessing  restricted;  if  the  stimulus  was 
perceived,  the  record  was  to  be  underscored  twice ;  thus,  the  records  of 
the  spontaneous  guesses  alone  remained  without  underscores.  In  Series 
I,  the  reagent  understood  that  any  letter  of  the  alphabet  or  any  of  the 
ten  digits  might  be  exposed ;  in  Series  II,  he  was  given  a  list  of  the  10 
symbols  to  which  he  limited  his  guesses.  The  order  of  exposed  letters 
and  digits  was  worked  out  by  chance  before  the  experiment  began,  and 
modified  in  such  a  way  that  each  letter  and  each  digit  appeared  five 
times  in  each  half  of  a  set  of  100  experiments. 

The  work  was  given  in  five  sections,  consisting  of  7,  5,  9,  10,  and 
7,  reagents  respectively.  Provision  for  group  experiments  was  made 
for  the  purpose  of  determining  individual  variation  in  perception.  The 
reagents  worked  independently,  however,  and  in  silence.  Experimental 
hours  for  the  reagent  came  one  week  apart,  at  the  same  hour  of  day,  in 
the  same  room,  and  three  or  four  sittings  were  required  to  finish  the 
work.  Reagents,  with  a  few  exceptions,  took  100  or  150  experiments 
each.  The  time  between  experiments  varied  from  one  to  two  minutes ; 
practiced  procedure,  as  planned,  required  one  minute.  It  is  thought  that 
fatigue  was  not  induced. 

Results. 

Series  I.  In  this  series,  the  reagents  did  not  know  the  particular 
symbols  shown  and  consequently  did  not  confine  their  guesses  to  those 
symbols.  The  probability  for  R  cases  by  chance  is  2.8%.  The  follow- 
ing table  gives  the  whole  number  and  the  number  Right  for  (a)  per- 
ceptions (twice-underscored  records),  (b)  inferences  (once-underscored 
records),  and  (c)  guesses;  also  the  per  cent  R  for  the  guesses;  and 
the  whole  number  of  experiments ;     for  the  respective  reagents : 


EXPERIMENTS  WITH    WIRTHIAN  TACHISTOSCOPE  193 

TABLE  LXII. 
R  Cases.     Wirthian  Tachistoscope.     p  =  2.8% 

Reagent  Perceptions  Inferences  Guesses  Experiments 

No.       R  No.  R  No.  R  %  R 

1914-15                   /  29        27  49  26  22  2  9.1  I°° 

2  25        23  29  19  46  4  8-7  I0° 

3  30  4  13-3  30 

4  81  7  o  65  2  3.1  80 

5  75  8  4  45  2  44  60 

6  ..  ..  ..  . .  50  o  o  50 

8  3  2  12  7  15  4  27.0  30 

9  11         10  10  6  92  22.0  3° 

Totals     83        68  115  62  282  20  480 

%      82  54  7-1 

1915-16                   13  7          7  4  3  139  4  2-9  J50 

74  12        12  10  3  128  9  7-0  150 

15  70        52  27  6  53  6  11.3  150 

/6  20        17  46  8  84  2  2.4  150 

17  41        39  41  21  68  10  147  '5° 

18  40        31  20  4  60  7  1 1.7  120 

19  35        33  19  7  66  7  10.6  120 

20  21  6  2  66  3  4-5  74 

21  13  4  39  2  18  2  n. 1  70 

22  18        17  11  9  10  3  300  39 

23  14        14  6  4  46  3  6.5  66 

24  33        32  7  3  60  5  8.3  100 

25  38        38  32  31  30  17  56.7  100 

26  19        19  28  22  53  7  13-2  100 

27  43        41  27  19  30  10  33-3  i°o 

28  15  14  21  83  14  16.9  100 
20  9          7  21  12  70  2  2.9  100 

30  41        36  28  8  31  2  6.4  100 

31  26        24  20  7  54  11  20.4  100 

32  68        67  24  16  83  37-5  100 

33  47        39  38  10  IS  1  6.7  100 

34  4  4  40  4  56  1  1.8  100 

35  4  3  18  9  78  5  6.4  100 

36  13  11  83  74  9  12.2  95 
3-  10  10  10  3  73  1  1-4  93 
38  87  18  5  74  6  8.1  100 

Totals     650      579  550  222  1527  150  2727 

%        89.0  404  9-8 

Grand  Totals  733      647  665  284  1809  170  3207 

%   88.3  42.7  9-4* 

*This  value  is  not  an  average  of  the  per  cents  listed  in  the  %R  column,  but 


194  SUBLIMINAL  IMPRESSION 

The  footings  of  the  table  show  that  of  the  3207  experiments  in  this 
series,  733  yielded  perceptions,  and  665  partial  perceptions  or  infer- 
ences, leaving  1809  guesses,  of  which  170  or  9.4%  are  Right  as  to  the 
particular  symbol.  From  other  tabulations  we  learn  that  the  guesses 
Right  as  to  general  character  (letter  for  letter,  and  digit  for  digit) 
equal  S'3.8%  as  against  50%,  the  probable  per  cent  by  chance. 

Leaving  the  central  values  and  their  significance  for  later  discus- 
sion, we  may  note  from  the  table  that  of  the  34  reagents  who  contrib- 
uted guesses,  only  4  fall  below  the  probable  chance  value  in  the  per  cent 
of  R  cases,  that  7  are  over  20%,  and  that  25  are  over  the  largest  chance 

hpq 
value  as  calculated   from  the  aggregate  results  (/>  +  3\l  -^-  =  2-°  + 

1.65  =  4.45%).  The  distribution  curve  indicates  that  for  over  a  fourth 
of  the  reagents,  the  results  are  probably  chance  values,  as  may  be  seen 
from  the  following  distribution  of  the  per  cents  of  R  cases : 


0 

6.4 

10.6 

20.4 

1-4 

6.4 

11. 1 

22.0 

1.8 

6.5 

H-3 

27.0 

2.4 

6.7 

1 1.7 

30.0 

2.9 

7.0 

12.2 

33-3 

2.9 

8.1 

132 

37-5 

3-1 

8.3 

13-3 

56.7 

4-4 

8.7 

14-7 

4-5 

9-1 

16.9 

Series  II.  In  this  series  the  reagents  knew  the  particular  symbols 
to  be  presented  and  limited  their  guesses  to  them.  Probability  of  R 
cases  by  chance  is  10%.  The  results  tabulated  as  before  are  shown  in 
Table  LXIII. 


is  calculated  on  the  base  of  the  total  number  of  Guesses  (1809),  being  the  per  cent 
of  the  aggregate  of  R  guesses.  In  succeeding  tables  the  corresponding  value  is 
similarly  derived. 


EXPERIMENTS  WITH    WIRTHIAN    TACHISTOSCOPE 


195 


1914-15 


TABLE  LXIII. 

R 

Cases. 

Wirthian  Tachistoscope 

•     /> 

=  10% 

Reagent  Perceptions 

Inferences 

Guesses 

Experiments 

No. 

R 

No. 

R 

No. 

R 

%R 

4 

6 

3 

2 

0 

12 

1 

8.3 

20 

5 

3i 

31 

5 

4 

4 

1 

25.0 

40 

6 

28 

28 

7 

6 

IS 

3 

20.0 

50 

7 

47 

47 

29 

28 

24 

13 

54-0 

100 

8 

12 

9 

39 

7 

19 

2 

10.5 

70 

9 

42 

38 

15 

8 

13 

1 

77 

70 

10 

57 

56 

25 

IS 

18 

2 

11. 1 

100 

11 

23 

17 

31 

12 

46 

4 

8.7 

100 

12 

33 

28 

28 

14 

29 

7 

24.2 

90 

..   279 

255 

181 

94 

180 

34 

640 

%           

91 

52 

18.9 

1915-16                32  00  o  o  50  5  io-o  50 

33  11  1  o  48  3  6.2  50 

34  00  1  o  49  4  8.2  50 

35  o          o  12  3  38  6  15.8  50 

37  00  1  o  49  4  8.2  50 

38  00  5  o  45  4  8.9  5° 

Totals     I  1  20          3  279        26                           300 

%        150                       9-3 

Grand    Totals     280  256  201        97  459        6°                         940 

%       91-5  48.3                    13.1 

We  find  that  out  of  a  total  of  940  experiments,  280  were  percep- 
tions (twice-underscored  records),  and  201  were  partial  perceptions  or 
inferences  (once-underscored),  which  leaves  459  as  guesses,  of  which 
13.1%  were  Right  in  particular  and,  from  other  tabulation  we  learn, 
57%  were  Right  in  general  (letter  for  letter,  and  digit  for  digit)  as  against 
the  probable  per  cents  of  R  cases  by  chance  of  10%.  and  50%  respec- 
tively. The  following  is  the  distribution  of  the  individual  per  cents  of 
the  Right  guesses  on  the  particular  character: 

6.2  8.7  158 

7.7  8.9  20.0 

8.2  10.0  24.2 

8.2  10.5  25.0 

8.3  11.0  540 

Only  three,  or  a  fifth,  of  the  fifteen  values  are  definitely  above  the 

limit  of  chance  for  the  aggregate,   (/>  +  3    l2^  =  10  +  9.5  =  19.5%), 

\    11 


196  SUBLIMINAL  IMPRESSION 

and  these  fall  in  the  1914-15  part  of  the  table.  Records  show  that  in 
the  1914-15  experiments,  79%  of  the  guesses  were  made  on  exposures 
of  60,  and  20%  on  exposures  of  8°,  while  the  limen  of  50%  twice- 
underscored  records  was  7.7c;;  and  that  in  the  1915-16  experiments  all 
the  guesses  were  made  on  a  40  exposure  during  a  dark,  murky  day,  the 
limen  under  ordinary  light  being  4.60 ;  also  that  the  former  conditions  of 
perception,  which  yielded  but  31.1%  of  guesses,  were  much  better  than 
the  latter  conditions  of  perception,  which  yielded  72.6%  of  guesses.  Con- 
sequently, the  stimuli  of  1915-16  were  much  below  the  threshold  of  per- 
ception, and  we  should,  perhaps,  consider  the  results  of  the  1914-15 
experiments  separately,  although  their  paucity  in  numbers  (180  guesses) 
will  greatly  decrease  the  reliability  of  the  central  measures :  R  cases  on 
the  particular  character  are  18.9%,  and  on  the  general  character  65%,  as 
against  the  probable  chance  values  of  10%  and  50%,  respectively,  while 
the  respective  chance-limits  are  19.5%  and  65.8%. 

In  the  appraisal  of  the  results  of  both  Series  I  and  Series  II  we 
should,  perhaps,  refine  slightly  our  method.  As  was  pointed  out  above, 
by  Sidis,  in  our  exposition  of  his  results,  to  reckon  the  chance  R  cases 
upon  the  basis  of  all  the  cases  (including  those  R  cases  due  to  other 
causes)  gives  us  a  value  too  large  for  the  deduction  from  the  total  R 
cases  to  find  the  number  of  R  cases  due  to  extra-chance  causes.  If  we 
apply  the  formula  we  derived  for  the  purpose  of  testing  Sidis'  results,39 
we  shall  get  truer  values : 

TABLE  LXIV. 
Summary  of  Wirthian  Tachistoscope  Results. 
x  =  the  %  of  R  cases  on  the  particular  character  due  to  extra-chance  causes, 
y  =  the  %  of  R  cases  on  the  general      character  due  to  extra-chance  causes, 
p  =  the  %  of  R  cases  to  be  expected  by  chance, 
L  =  the  %  of  R  cases  beyond  which  chance  is  not  expected  to  deviate  from  p. 


Part 

cular  Right 

General  Right 

Guesses 

X 

P        L 

x/L                y 

P 

L 

y/L 

Series    I     ...   1809 

6.8 

2.8      1.65 

4.1                1.0 

50 

4.98 

0.20 

Series  II : 

Total    459 

2.15 

10        5-94 

0.36            11.85 

50 

9-9 

1.2 

1914-15     180 

7.4         10       9.48       0.78           22.60 
The  general  form  of  the  formula  is : 

50 

158 

1-4 

39  Vide,  pp.  180  f. 

X 

+  y  +  P  = 

R  General 

x  + 

Px 

*> 

(.y  +  P)  = 

R  Particular 

in 


which  R  General  and  R  Particular  are  the  per  cents  of  the  Right  guesses,  and 
p.  and  pv  express  the  probability  of  chance  for  R  Particular  and  R  General  guesses 
respectively. 


EXPERIMENTS   WITH    WIRTHIAN   TACHISTOSCOPE  197 

Concerning  Series  I  it  is  definitely  certain  that  there  was  some 
cause  beyond  chance  working  for  R  cases  on  the  particular  character, 
the  x  value  being  4.1  times  the  chance-limit;  and  that  there  was  no 
subliminal  classification  tending  toward  R  cases  on  the  general  character 
of  the  stimulus,  the  y  value  being  only  .2,  or  20%,  of  the  chance-limit. 
Discussion  on  the  possible  nature  of  the  extra-chance  causes  will  be 
taken  up  after  the  quantitative  results  have  all  been  inspected. 

In  Series  II.  we  find,  if  we  consider  the  total  series,  that  the  x 
value  is  only  36%  of  the  chance-limit,  if  the  1914-15  part  of  the  series, 
78%,  which  is  no  certain  indication  that  x  is  different  from  chance. 
But  the  y  values  are  1.2  and  1.4  times  the  chance-limit,  respectively, 
indicating  the  presence  of  an  extra-chance  classifying  process,  though 
in  no  high  degree. 

Should  we  surmise  that  the  approach  of  the  x  values  toward  their 
limits  indicates  the  probability  of  the  presence  of  extra-chance  causes, 
and  appeal  to  the  individual  cases  showing  the  higher  percentages  of 
R  cases,  we  find  that,  although,  as  has  already  been  noted,  a  fifth  of  the 
cases  fall  above  the  chance-limit  for  the  aggregate  results,  only  one  case 
exceeds  its  own  chance-limit:  that  of  Reagent  7,  (Number  of  experi- 
ments, 24;  per  cent  R,  54;  chance-limit,  25;  Probable  per  cent  R  + 
chance-limit,  35.9).  This  is  positive  evidence  of  an  extra-chance  cause, 
although  it  is  greatly  inferior  to  the  evidence  in  Series  I  in  which  not 
only  the  aggregate  results  positively  identify  it,  but  of  the  individual 
cases,  nine,  or  a  fourth,  at  least  exceed  in  R  cases  their  own  chance- 
limits. 


198  SUBLIMINAL   IMPRESSION 


Division  II.     With  the  Wundtian  Tachistoscope. 

In  the  second  division  of  our  experiments  a  tachistoscope  of  the 
Wundtian  type  was  used.  It  held  the  white  cards,  10.3  X  15-2  cm.,  on 
a  hinged  receiver  back  of  a  falling  screen  the  movement  of  which  was 
concealed  by  a  larger  stationary  screen.  Both  screens  were  made  of  black 
pasteboard.  A  capital  or  digit,  2.5  mm.  high,  was  typed  in  Elite  type, 
with  a  Remington  Standard  Typewriter  No.  7,  on  the  center  of  each 
card.  From  the  reagent's  position,  at  a  distance  of  2  meters  from  the 
card,  the  letter  subtended  a  visual  angle  of  4.32'.  The  conditions  of 
perception  were  such  that  the  reagents  all  together  perceived  about  11% 
of  the  characters,  although  three  of  the  seventeen  perceived  none  and 
one  perceived  about  30%.  The  ten  characters  used  were  B  H  K  U  Z 
2  4  5  7  9.40  The  order  of  the  presentation,  determined  by  modified 
chance,  provided  for  the  exposure  of  each  character  five  times  in  each 
half  of  a  set  of  100  experiments. 

Procedure. 

The  large  black  screen  concealed  the  experimenter  and  his  manip- 
ulation of  the  apparatus  from  the  reagent's  view.  The  cards  were 
placed  on  the  hinged  receiver  in  the  back  of  the  tachistoscope.  After 
the  falling  screen  was  drawn  up  and  the  card  was  in  place,  a  point  of 
fixation  on  the  screen  held  the  eyes  of  the  reagent  upon  the  position  of 
the  character  behind  the  screen.  A  signal  was  given  2  seconds  before 
the  exposure.  The  reagent  recorded  the  character,  if  it  was  perceived, 
and  underscored  his  record  twice ;  if  he  did  not  perceive  the  character, 
but  perceived  lines  or  curves  or  anything  serviceable  for  limiting  his 
range  of  error  in  guessing,  he  recorded  his  inference  or  guess,  and 
underscored  his  record  once;  if  his  judgment  was  a  pure  guess,  he 
left  his  record  without  underscores.  In  Series  I  the  reagent  understood 
that  any  of  the  26  letters  or  of  the  10  digits  was  likely  to  appear,  mak- 
ing his  chance  for  R  cases  2.8%  (1  :  36)  ;  in  Series  II,  he  was  given  a 
list  of  the  characters  to  which  he  confined  his  guesses,  making  chance 
10%.  Reagents  5,  6,  and  7;  12,  13,  and  14;  and  15  and  16,  worked 
in  groups;  the  rest  worked  alone.  The  rate  of  experiments  was  about 
one  a  minute ;    sittings  as  before  came  weekly. 


40  The  following  is  a  facsimile  (natural  size)  of  the  characters: 

BHKUZ24579 

Fig.  3.     Characters  used  in  the  Wundtian  Tachistoscope. 


EXPERIMENTS    WITH    WUNDTIAN   TACHISTOSCOPE 


199 


Results. 

The  results  of  Series  I,  tabulated  in  the  same  manner  as  before, 
are  shown  in  the  following  table : 


'5)14-15 


1915-16 


TABLE 

LXV. 

Wundtian 

Tachistoscope.     /> 

=  2.8' 

"9. 

Reagent  Percept: 

ions 

Inferences 

Guesses 

Experiments 

No. 

R 

No. 

R 

No. 

R 

%R 

/ 

16 

6 

84 

10 

11.9 

100 

2 

28 

11 

72 

9 

12.5 

100 

4 

100 

2 

2.0 

100 

5 

5 

0 

9 

2 

136 

11 

7-4 

150 

6 

5 

2 

145 

20 

138 

150 

8 

8 

6 

45 

6 

47 

2 

4-3 

100 

9 

7 

2 

58 

5 

35 

0 

0 

100 

10 

20 

3 

80 

4 

5-0 

100 

11 

4- 

2 

31 

6 

65 

7 

10.8 

100 

12 

54 

3i 

77 

18 

119 

12 

10. 1 

250 

13 

7i 

25 

57 

7 

122 

10 

8.2 

250 

'4 

33 

21 

127 

24 

90 

10 

11. 1 

250 

'5 

58 

22 

70 

0 

72 

2 

2.8 

200 

16 

49 

27 

48 

8 

103 

6 

5-8 

200 

17 

20 

2 

80 

0 

0 

100 

il   

289 

136 

47 

611 
0 

100 
16.3 

1350 

105 
7.8 

2250 

Of  the  2250  experiments,  289  yielded  perceptions,  611  inferences, 
and  1350  guesses;  7.8%  of  the  latter  were  Right  with  respect  to  the 
particular  character,  and  557%  as  to  the  general  character,  of  the  stim- 
ulus, as  against  the  probable  per  cents  of  chance  of  2.8%  and  50%  re- 
spectively. The  distribution  of  the  per  cents  R  as  to  the  particular  char- 
acter indicated  that  about  half  of  them  include  extra-chance  causes: 


0 

2 

6 

10 

11 

0 

2 

7 

10 

12 

2 

4 

9 

10 

20 

200  SUBLIMINAL  IMPRESSION 

Series  II.    The  results  of  Series  II  are  given  in  the  following  table: 

TABLE  LXVI. 


1914-15 


1915-16 


Wundtian  Tachistoscope. 

/»  =  10 

%. 

Reagent  Percept 

ons 

Inferences 

Guesses 

Experiments 

No. 

R 

No. 

R 

No. 

R 

%R 

IS 

1 

S 

3 

9 

2 

86 

9 

10.5 

100 

2 

24 

5 

76 

9 

1 1.9 

100 

3 

100 

8 

8.0 

100 

5 

12 

7 

19 

9 

69 

10 

14-5 

100 

6 

2 

1 

10 

4 

88 

20 

22.7 

100 

7 

2 

1 

9 

3 

59 

5 

8.5 

70 

8 

6 

S 

36 

14 

58 

7 

12. 1 

100 

9 

16 

8 

55 

12 

29 

4 

138 

100 

16 

17 

4 

4 

6 

2 

90 

24 

26.6 

100 

Totals 

47 

29 
61.7 

168 

51 
30.3 

655 

96 

770 

%.... 

14.6 

Of  the  770  records,  47  were  perceptions,  168  inferences,  and  655 
guesses ;  of  the  latter  14.6%  were  Right  with  respect  to  the  particular 
character,  and  SS-7%  with  respect  to  the  general  character,  of  the  stim- 
ulus, as  against  the  probable  per  cents  of  10%  and  50%  respectively. 
All  but  two  of  the  per  cents  in  the  tabulation  are  indistinguishable  from 
chance. 

Refining  our  method  of  inspection  of  the  results,  as  before,  by  the 
use  of  our  formula,  we  find  the  values,  for  the  two  series  of  experi- 
ments, given  in  the  following  table : 

TABLE  LXVII. 

Summary  of  Wundtian  Tachistoscope   Results.41 

Particular  Character  General  Character 

Guesses     %  R      p        x        L      x/L        %  R    p    y       L        y/L 

Series      I    2250  7.8      2.8    4.94     1.8      2.7  55.7    50    6.3    5.78     1.1 

Series    II     770         14.6     10       432    4.98    0.87         55.7     50     7.1     8.28    086 

In  Series  I,  there  was  a  definite  extra-chance  cause  working  for  R 
particular  guesses  amounting  to  2.7  times  the  chance-limit ;  for  R  gen- 
eral guesses  amounting  to  1.1  times  the  chance-limit.  In  Series  II,  since 
the  chance-limit  was  only  approached  by  87%  and  86%  respectively, 
there  is  no  certain  indication  of  an  extra-chance  cause  in  the  aggregate 


41  For  the  meaning  of  the  rubrics,  see  similar  table  on  page  196,  supra. 


EXPERIMENTS   WITH    WUNDTIAN   TACHISTOSCOPE  201 

results.  The  two  individual  cases,  however,  to  which  reference  was 
made  above,  safely  exceed  their  own  chance-limits  and  give  positive 
evidence  of  an  extra-chance  influence  upon  the  guessing  of  the  particu- 
lar characters. 

This  completes  our  investigations  of  the  influence  of  subliminal  im- 
pression upon  judgments  given  upon  tachistoscopic  presentations  to 
foveal  vision,  and  it  is  opportune  to  canvass  the  situation  with  a  view  of 
interpreting  the  nature  of  the  extra-chance  influence  which  is  indicated 
by  our  tables. 

From  Tables  LXIV  and  LXVII 42  we  note  that  satisfactory  evidence 
of  this  influence  upon  the  judgments  of  the  particular  character  is  lim- 
ited to  the  first  series  of  each  division  of  the  experiments,  in  which  the 
probable  per  cent  for  R  cases  by  chance  was  2.8%.  Since  in  these  sum- 
maries of  our  aggregate  results  no  good  evidence  of  the  influence  was 
shown  in  the  second  series  of  both  divisions,  in  which  the  apparatus 
and  procedure,  and  even  the  greater  number  of  the  reagents,  were  iden- 
tical with  those  of  the  first  series,  the  query  may  arise  as  to  whether  the 
extra-chance  influence  positively  identified  is  in  any  way  related  to  the 
respect  in  which  the  first  series  differed  from  the  second  series :  That 
is,  to  the  condition  of  guessing  in  which  the  reagent  is  not  cognizant 
of  the  particular  symbols  being  presented,  and  is  not  expected  to  limit 
his  range  of  error  in  any  degree  to  them.  Now,  as  is  shown  elsewhere, 
in  the  section  on  The  Influence  of  Mental  Habits  Upon  Judgment,43 
the  field  of  error  is  curiously  limited  in  a  reagent's  guessing;  the  limita- 
tion is  involuntarily  self-imposed.  Since  these  limitations  vary  with  the 
individual,  unless  there  is  a  common  influence  upon  them,  they  have  no 
effect,  in  the  long  run,  upon  the  per  cent  of  R  cases.430  Were  they  sub- 
ject to  the  influence  of  subliminal  impression  they  would  contribute  to 
R  cases,  and  in  two  ways :  ( I )  by  canceling  error  in  the  direct  sublim- 
inal perception  of  the  particular  character;  and  (2)  by  limiting  the 
range  of  error,  in  some  degree,  to  the  symbols  exerting  the  influence 
and  thus  increasing  the  chances  for  R  cases  apart  from  either  the  im- 
mediate subliminal  perception  or  pure  chance.  This  second  form  of 
augmenting  the  R  cases  of  chance,  however,  may  also  result,  and  per- 
haps  more   effectively,    from   occasional   satisfactory  perception   of   the 


42  Supra,  pp.  196  and  200. 

43  Vide,  infra,  pp.  308  ff. 

43a  For  a  consideration  of  the  influence  of  mental  habit  in  these  experiments, 
vide,  infra,  pp.  308  ff. 


202  SUBLIMINAL  IMPRESSION 

symbols.  Is  it  likely,  then,  that  our  extra-chance  influence  for  R  cases 
is  merely  the  effect,  through  suggestion,  of  perceptions  (with  their 
twice-underscored  records)  upon  the  range  of  error  in  guessing  by  nar- 
rowing the  range  somewhat  in  the  more  frequent  guessing  of  the  sym- 
bols that  had  been  perceived?  If  so,  the  per  cents  of  R  cases  for  the 
individual  reagents  should  form  a  sliding  scale,  with  those  who  per- 
ceived no  symbols  at  the  zero  end  and  those  who  perceived  the  greatest 
per  cent  of  symbols  at  the  other.  Or,  if  the  two  arrays  do  not  corre- 
spond closely  there  should  be  a  considerable  correlation  between  them. 
We  find  that  the  coefficient  of  correlation  (r)*  is 

r  =  .484 
PE  =  .o77, 

which  is  a  definite  indication  of  relationship;  but  the  results  of  eight 
reagents  (9,  17,  22,  25,  26,  27,  31,  and  32),  in  Table  LXII,  at  the 
higher  end  of  the  arrays  are  responsible  for  almost  the  whole  of  this 
value,  since  if  they  are  disregarded  the  coefficient  of  correlation  between 
the  per  cent  of  R  guesses  and  the  per  cent  of  perceptions  becomes  neg- 
ligible in  amount  (r=.n5  ±  .109).  Results  in  Table  LXV  are  clear 
of  this  criticism,  as  are  the  remaining  results  of  Table  LXII,  which, 
after  the  elimination  of  the  eight  reagents,  yield  in  R  guesses  6.88%  ; 
x  =  4. 1 ,  and  x/L  =  2.08. 

Moreover,  with  respect  to  the  eight  reagents,  the  coefficient  of  cor- 
relation does  not  inform  us  whether  the  causal  relation  must  be  read 
from  one  phenomenon  to  the  other  or  whether  both  phenomena  are  to 
some  extent  the  effects  of  a  common  cause.  It  is  possible  that  part  of 
the  relationship  is  the  result  of  the  influence  of  subliminal  impression 
itself,  since  there  is  some  evidence  that  unperceived  letters  presented  by 
a  tachistoscope  facilitate  the  perception  of  the  same  letters  exhibited  in 
succeeding  exposures.44 

Another  fact  which  mitigates  this  criticism  may  be  pointed  out. 
The  criticism  takes  for  its  point  d'appui  the  difference  between  the  de- 
cisive  x/L   values    of   the   first    series    and   the    indecisive    correspond- 


ed (82)        nT,  ,    1  — r' 

-PE  =  . 7063 — =^-   ■      r  =  2  smlrp 


"  n  {n2  — ■  1)  '  Vh  \6 

Vide,  Brown:  The  Essentials  of  Mental  Measurement.  Cambridge,  1911,  pp.  49  ff. 
44  Coover :  Formal  Discipline  from  the  Standpoint  of  Experimental  Psychol- 
ogy, Psychological  Monographs,  1916,  No.  87:203.  Cf.,  Schumann:  Die  Erken- 
nung  von  Buchstaben  und  Worten  bei  momentaren  Beleuchtung,  Bericht  u.  d.  I 
Kongrcss  f.  Exp.  Psychol.,  1904:36;  and  Pillsbury :  A  study  in  Apperception,  Am. 
Jr.  Psychol,  1896-97,  8:355,  357.  359- 


EXPERIMENTS    WITH    WUNDTIAN   TACHISTOSCOPE  203 

ing  values  of  the  second  series  (Tables  LXIV  and  LXVII).  The  first 
series  has  two  statistical  advantages  over  the  second  series,  which  to- 
gether are  probably  sufficient  to  account  for  the  respective  differences 
between  the  values  in  question:  (i)  The  greater  number  of  experi- 
ments decreases  the  chance-limit  (L)  ;  (2)  the  probable  per  cent  of  R 
cases  by  chance  (/>)  is  small  enough  relatively  to  require  only  about  one- 
eleventh  of  the  number  of  experiments  to  yield  a  decisive  x/L  value  for 
any  given  per  cent  of  extra-chance  influence.  The  indecisiveness  of  the 
values  of  the  second  series,  therefore,  cannot  be  taken  as  a  positive  in- 
dication of  the  absence  of  extra-chance  influence.44"  As  has  already  been 
pointed  out  some  of  the  individual  values  in  the  other  tables  (LXIII  and 
LXVI)  are  sufficiently  high  to  overcome  this  handicap  and  thus  to  con- 
stitute positive  evidence  of  the  presence  of  extra-chance  influence. 

A  second  source  of  error,  one  likely  to  be  pressed  by  the  experi- 
mental psychologist,  is  the  lack  of  a  guarantee  that  all  of  the  guesses  are 
valid  guesses.  Is  it  not  probable  that  some  of  the  records  left  without 
underscore  should  have  been  underscored,  since  the  reagents  were  not 
experienced  in  the  laboratory  and  could  not  be  expected  to  be  skilled  in 
avoiding  occasional  lapses  of  attention  or  memory,  which  naturally  result 
in  a  record  of  a  guess  for  a  perception  or  a  partial  perception,  or  in 
avoiding  momentary  inexpertness  in  introspection?  No  doubt  some  of 
the  guesses  are  not  valid  guesses,  but  they  are  probably  negligible  in 
number  since  the  reagent  was  constantly  having  to  discriminate  between 
his  perceptions,  his  partial  perceptions,  and  his  "spontaneous  guesses," 
and,  granting  him  customary  integrity,  this  process  itself  trains  to  expert- 
ness  in  the  capacity  in  question,  and  tends  also  to  inhibit  lapses  of  atten- 
tion and  memory  in  the  critical  moments  of  the  experiment. 

A  consideration  of  the  individual  values  in  Tables  LXII  and  LXV  45 
makes  it  clear  (1)  that  for  about  half  of  the  reagents  there  is  little  or 
no  extra-chance  influence  upon  their  guessing;  (2)  that  for  only  about 
a  sixth  of  those  who  made  the  largest  percentages  of  R  guesses,  the  in- 
fluence of  perceived  letters  may  have  been  considerable ;  this  is  verified 
by  the  fact  that  with  their  elimination  from  the  arrays,  the  coefficient 
of  correlation  between  per  cent  of  R  guesses  and  per  cent  of  percep- 
tions falls  almost  to  its  probable  error;    (3)  that  for  about  a  third  of 

440  The  indecisiveness  of  the  results  of  the  second  series  is  removed  if  the 
data  are  aggregated :  Number  of  guesses  =  1114,  R  cases  =  156  =  14.5%,  x  =  5%, 
x/L=  1.25.  The  deviation  of  R  cases  from  probability  exceeds  the  limit  of  chance 
deviation,  and  the  x  value  is  1.25  times  that  limit.  There  can  be  no  doubt  of  an 
extra-chance  cause  working  for  R  cases. 

45  Supra,  pp.  193  and  199. 


204  SUBLIMINAL   IMPRESSION 

the  reagents,  an  extra-chance  influence  free  from  any  considerable  error 
may  be  attributed  to  subliminal  impression. 

With  respect  to  the  R  guesses  of  the  general  character  of  the  stim- 
ulus (letter  for  letter,  digit  for  digit),  the  y  values  in  Tables  LXIV 
and  LXVII 4e  exceed  the  chance-limit  in  two  of  the  four  cases :  In 
Series  II  with  the  Wirthian  tachistoscope,  and  in  Series  I  with  the 
Wundtian  tachistoscope.  Both  series  of  characters,  however,  present 
characteristic  differences  between  capitals  and  digits,  as  may  be  seen 
from  the  facsimiles  of  the  type,47  which  may  be  all  that  is  necessary  to 
provide  to  indistinct  perception  a  clue  sufficiently  effective  to  account 
for  the  excess  in  R  cases.  The  process,  of  course,  could  be  involuntary. 
Should  this  explanation  not  be  adequate,  there  is  still  the  possibility  of 
subliminal  influence  from  these  distinguishing  characteristics,  before  re- 
sort to  subliminal  classification  of  subliminally  perceived  particular  sym- 
bols becomes  necessary. 


46  Supra,  pp.  196  and  200. 

47  Shown  on  p.  191,  footnote  38,  and  p.  198,  footnote  40,  respectively. 


EXPERIMENTS  ON    PERIPHERAL   IMPRESSION  205 


Division  III.     Peripheral  Impression. 

The  experiments  of  this  division  ran  pari  passu  with  those  of  the 
foregoing  divisions,  being  performed  with  the  same  apparatus  and  gen- 
eral procedure  as  were  employed  in  Division  II.  Their  purpose  was  to 
present  stimuli  to  peripheral  vision  under  such  conditions  as  would  pre- 
clude ordinary  complete  or  partial  perception  either  in  foveal  or  in  per- 
ipheral vision,  and  thus  to  provide  opportunity  for  evidence  for  the  in- 
fluence of  subliminal  impressions  which  would  be  free  from  the  criticism 
that  introspective  check,  upon  guessing,  especially  with  naive  reagents 
such  as  ours,  is  unreliable  for  the  purpose  of  discriminating  between 
guesses  and  partial  perceptions. 

On  each  card  presented  in  the  Wundtian  tachistoscope  two  charac- 
ters were  typed  in  Elite  type  by  a  Remington  Standard  No.  7  Type- 
writer: a  capital  on  the  lower  right  corner;  a  digit  on  the  upper  left 
corner.  The  symbols  were  the  same  as  were  used  in  Division  II : 
BHKUZ2457  9*  The  reagent  was  required  in  each  experi- 
ment to  record  the  capital  and  to  put  down  with  the  record  any  digit 
that  should  come  to  his  mind.  He  was  warned  not  to  use  any  method 
in  his  guessing  of  digits.  In  Section  I  he  usually  did  not  know  a  digit 
was  being  presented  with  the  letter.  In  Section  II  he  did  know  that  a 
digit  was  being  presented,  and  he  usually  confined  his  guesses  to  the  five 
digits.  Conditions  of  perception  were  sufficiently  difficult  to  demand  ef- 
fort, and  accurate  judgment  of  the  capital  remained  the  principal  task 
of  the  reagent. 

The  position  of  the  reagent  was  1  meter  from  the  card,  the  visual 
angle  of  the  character  at  that  distance  was  8.6',  and  the  time  of  exposure 
was  .085  seconds — less  than  the  fixation  reaction-time  of  the  eye.  Only 
one  exposure  was  allowed  in  an  experiment. 

These  conditions  guaranteed  a  subliminal  impression  to  peripheral 
vision,  since  the  visual  angle  subtended  by  the  distance  between  the  two 
characters  was  8°  (in  Series  I  of  each  Section),  at  which  distance  from 
the  line  of  sight  in  peripheral  vision  a  character  to  be  cognized  must 
subtend  a  visual  angle  of  30  46V8 — 26  times  the  vertical  diameter  of 
our  digit, — and  two  strokes  can  be  distinguished  from  one  stroke  when 
the  distance  between  them  is  5'  46",49  which  is  about  67%  of  the  angle 
subtended  by  our  digit. 


*  A  facsimile  of  the  characters  is  shown  on  page  198,  footnote  40. 
48Volkmann:     Handworterbuch  der  Physiologic  1846,  III,  1,  334. 
49Hueck:    Mullet's  Archiv,  1840,  p.  93. 


206  SUBLIMINAL  IMPRESSION 

In  order  to  come  closer  to  the  limen  of  perception  the  digit  for 
some  series  was  brought  closer  to  the  capital :  Series  II,  6°  ;  Series  III, 
4°  ;   and  Series  IV,  2°. 

In  all  series  a  fixation  point  on  the  falling  screen  directed  the  focus 
of  the  reagent's  eyes  upon  the  position  of  the  capital. 

Results. 

Section  I.  Table  LXVIII  gives  the  data  obtained  under  the  condi- 
tions that  the  reagent  did  not  know  the  particular  digits  which  were  be- 
ing displayed  with  the  capital,  usually  did  not  know  a  digit  was  being  dis- 
played at  all,  and  the  distance  of  the  digit  from  the  line  of  sight  was  8°  ; 
the  theoretical  probability  for  R  cases  was  10%.  The  reagent,  the  num- 
ber of  experiments,  the  number  of  capitals  correctly  recorded,  the  num- 
ber and  per  cent  of  digits  correctly  guessed,  the  revised  chance  (px)  as 
determined  by  the  restriction  in  the  range  of  error  which  the  mental 
habit  of  the  reagent  imposed  upon  his  guessing,  and  the  deviation  of 
%  R  from  />!,  are  the  respective  rubrics . 

Out  of  2625  records  of  capitals,  2364  (90%)  were  right,  and  these 
alone  are  accepted  as  valid  for  our  purpose.  Guesses  on  the  digits  were 
right  365  times,  making  R  cases  15.44%-  Accepting  the  probable  per 
cent  for  R  cases  (10%)  as  a  basis  for  calculating  x  (the  value  of  extra- 
chance  influence),  we  get 

x  +  p  (1  —  x)  =.1544 

X  +  .1  —AX  =  .1544 

x  —  .i#=.i544  —  .1  =  .0544 

.o.r  =  .0544 

x  =  .0604  =  6.04% 

x 
L  =  2.62%  ~£  =  2.3 

Since  x  is  2.3  times  the  limit  of  chance,  the  evidence  for  extra- 
chance  influence  is  positive  and  satisfactory.  Suspecting,  however,  that 
the  relatively  large  per  cents  of  R  cases  contributed  by  Reagents  23  and 
2J  may  be  responsible  alone  for  the  excess  over  the  limit  of  chance  vari- 
ation, we  disregard  them  and  calculate  our  values  again,  finding 

x  =  $.\i 

x 

T  =  IS 

The  evidence  is  unchanged  and  there  appears  no  good  reason  for  ex- 
cluding the  two  records. 


EXPERIMENTS   ON    PERIPHERAL   IMPRESSION 


207 


1914-15 


1915-16 


TABLE  LXVIII. 

Peripheral 

Vision. 

Sec.  I.    Series  I.    Visual  Angle  8°. 

p  =  10%. 

Reagent 

Experiments 

Letter  R 

Digit  R 

%R 

Pi 

%  R-Px 

5 

3 

100 

9i 

9 

9-5 

1 0.0 

-0-5 

4 

100 

97 

11 

113 

hi 

40.2 

5 

99 

61 

16 

26.2 

1 0.0 

+l6.2 

6 

97 

71 

14 

19.7 

11. 1 

+8.6 

7 

100 

82 

12 

14.6 

11. 1 

+3-5 

8 

100 

80 

9 

H-3 

1 1.4 

-0.1 

9 

99 

86 

10 

11.6 

1 0.0 

+1.6 

10 

100 

96 

11 

H-5 

11. 1 

+0.4 

11 

100 

IOO 

14 

14.0 

10.0 

+4.0 

[6 

12 

100 

98 

11 

11.2 

10.0 

+1.2 

13 

100 

IOO 

15 

150 

II. I 

+3-9 

14 

100 

99 

10 

IO.I 

1 0.0 

+0.1 

15 

IOO 

93 

17 

18.3 

II. I 

+7.2 

16 

100 

IOO 

14 

14.0 

II. I 

+2.9 

17 

IOO 

85 

14 

16.5 

II. I 

+5-4 

18 

IOO 

95 

17 

17.9 

II. I 

+6.8 

19 

200 

189 

21 

11. 1 

10.6 

+0.5 

20 

IOO 

97 

12 

12.4 

11. 1 

+1-3 

21 

IOO 

94 

11 

11.7 

8.9 

+2.8 

22 

IOO 

98 

12 

12.2 

1 0.0 

+2.2 

23 

IOO 

98 

36 

36.7 

11. 1 

+25.6 

24 

IOO 

44 

5 

11.4 

6.7 

+4-7 

25 

IOO 

96 

15 

156 

12.S 

+3-1 

26 

IOO 

93 

14 

15.0 

11. 1 

+3-9 

27 

IOO 

98 

32 

326 

13-3 

+19-3 

28 

30 

23 

3 

13.0 

11. 1 

+  1.9 

Totals 

—  2625 

2364 

365 

%   ... 

90 

15.44 

The  extra-chance  influence  might  result  from  common  mental  habits 
in  guessing,  such  as  by  narrowing  the  range  of  error  would  increase  the 
chances  for  R  cases.  Upon  examination  of  tabulations  of  digits  guessed, 
it  is  found  that  but  7  reagents  out  of  the  26  were  free  from  those  self- 
imposed  limitations.  L'sually  they  neglected  to  guess  0  or  1,  or  both, 
which  would  increase  the  chance  for  R  cases  from  1 :  10  to  1 : 9,  or  1:8; 
but  sometimes  an  intermediate  digit  was  ignored  and  occasionally  it  was 
one  of  the  digits  being  displayed.  For  each  reagent,  then,  his  chance 
for  R  cases,  as  affected  by  his  mental  habit,  was  found,  and  is  given 
under  pl  in  the  table  above.     If  we  segregate  the  data  and  calculate  x 


208 


SUBLIMINAL  IMPRESSION 


on  the  basis  of  the  revised  values  we  get  the  following  table,  in  which 
pxn  is  the  probable  number  of  R  cases  expected  from  the  chance  given 
under  p2 : 

TABLE  LXIX. 

Mental  Habit  Eliminated. 


Experiments 

'1 

Px» 

R 

1 130 

II. I 

125-4 

190 

633 

10.0 

63-3 

82 

189 

10.6 

20.0 

21 

98 

133 

130 

32 

96 

12-5 

12.0 

15 

94 

8.9 

8.4 

11 

80 

11.4 

9i 

9 

44 

6.7 

2.9 

S 

2364 

254-1 

365 

Per  cent 

10.75 

15.44 

Difference 

+4.69 

x  + 

1075  — 

1075*  = 

=  ■1544 

X  — 

.1075-r  = 
.8925*  = 

=  .1544  —  1 
=  .0469 

375  = 

0469 

X    - 

=  -05255  =  £ 

.25% 

% 

X 

T  ~ 

=  2.02 

The  aggregate  of  the  R  cases  expected  in  the  2364  experiments  be- 
comes 10.75%  instead  of  10%  ;  the  difference  is  real  but  slight,  and  x 
is  still  twice  the  chance-limit.  The  extra-chance  influence,  after  the  ef- 
fect of  mental  habit  is  eliminated,  seems  to  be  due  alone  to  the  sublim- 
inal impression  of  the  digit  made  upon  the  peripheral  retina.  But  it  is 
not  equally  effective  with  all  of  the  reagents.  From  the  last  column  in 
Table  LXVIII  we  get  the  following  distribution  of  gross  values  of  extra- 
chance  influence  (%R-/'1)  : 


-0-5 

+1.9 

+4-7 

-0.1 

+2.2 

+5-4 

-O.I 

+2.8 

+6.8 

+0.2 

+2.9 

+7.2 

+0.4 

+3-1 

+8.6 

+0.5 

+3-5 

+16.2 

+1.2 

+3-9 

+19-3 

+1-3 

+3-9 

+256 

+1.6 

+4.0 

Since  the  chance-limit   for  the  distribution  is  about  2.6,  we  may  infer 
that  the  subliminal  impression  was  effective  in  15  of  the  26  cases. 


EXPERIMENTS  ON    PERIPHERAL   IMPRESSION  209 

The  results  of  the  further  series,  given  for  the  purpose  of  learning 
whether  the  extra-chance  influence  becomes  greater  as  the  visual  angle 
between  digit  and  letter  is  decreased  toward  the  limen  of  peripheral 
vision,  are  summarized  in  the  following  table: 

TABLE  LXX. 
Summary  of  Section  I.     p  =  10%. 

Series I                       II  HI  IV 

Visual  angle 8°                       6°  4  2 

Number  of  reagents   26                       15  14  J4 

Number  of  experiments    2625                     760  410  280 

Letter   R    2364                    721  403  276 

%  Digit  R   15-44                  12.07  12.65  21.76 

p      10.75                  10-54  IO-8:  I2-3° 

x    5-25                    1.71  2°3  I0-7 

x/L 2.02                    0.36  0.32  127 

These  reagents,  it  must  be  recalled,  did  not  know  what  digits  were 
being  presented,  and,  owing  to  mental  habits,  variously  restricted  their 
range  of  error  in  guessing;  this  source  of  error  has  been  removed  from 
their  results  in  the  above  table.  Revised  chance  (/-J  always  exceeded 
theoretical  p  somewhat,  and  in  Series  IV  considerably.  The  x  value 
falls  heavily  in  Series  II,  but  gradually  increases  in  the  succeeding  series 
until  it  becomes  (in  Series  IV)  1.27  times  the  chance-limit,  owing 
largely,  no  doubt,  to  direct  peripheral  perception.  The  drop  was  unex- 
pected, but  seems  to  be  due  to  a  strong  counter-tendency  which  the  sub- 
liminal impression  had  overcome.  Tabulation  of  the  digits  guessed 
shows  that  associations  were  formed  between  letter  and  digit,  sometimes 
strong  enough  to  persist  involuntarily  in  the  reagent's  guessing  for  a 
considerable  time.  In  fact,  since  subliminal  impressions  must  have  been 
to  some  extent  responsible  for  these  associations,  the  longer  the  reagent 
was  kept  guessing,  under  the  same  conditions,  the  more  firm  would  the 
associations  become  by  reason  of  continued  subliminal  reinforcement ; 
and,  apart  from  reinforcement,  the  process  of  recording  the  associated 
symbols  together  would  tend  by  the  force  of  habit  to  make  the  associa- 
tions firmer.  Now,  in  each  Section,  the  reagents  who  took  the  succes- 
sive series  of  experiments  were  the  same  reagents,  and  they  took  the 
series  in  their  consecutive  order.  But  for  each  succeeding  series  a 
fresh  set  of  cards,  with  a  rearranged  distribution  of  the  digits  over  the 
capitals,  was  provided,  and  continued  associations,  in  so  far  as  they  were 
the  result  of  subliminal  impression,  would  result  in  100%  wrong  guesses. 


210  SUBLIMINAL  IMPRESSION 

Their  influence  would  have  to  be  more  than  overcome,  for  R  cases  to  ex- 
ceed chance,  by  the  subliminal  influence  of  the  newly  distributed  digits. 
The  amount  of  decrease  in  the  x  value,  in  Series  II,  might  then  be  taken 
as  a  rough  measure  of  the  influence  of  persisting  associations. 

Although  some  of  the  x  values  (in  Series  II  and  III)  are  not  great- 
er than  their  associated  chance-limits,  probably  owing  wholly  to  the  lack 
of  a  sufficient  number  of  experiments  to  reduce  the  chance-limit  below 
them,  they  indicate  gradation  of  influence  with  successive  decreases  in 
the  visual  angle  between  the  digit  and  the  line  of  vision.  That  the  gra- 
dation indicates  merely  decrease  in  the  counter-influence  is  unlikely, 
since  the  series  II,  III,  and  IV  were  taken  in  the  same  sitting  and  the 
number  of  experiments  in  each  was  scarcely  enough,  except  through  the 
influence  of  subliminal  impression,  to  break  up  the  persisting  associa- 
tions. At  any  rate,  the  tabulations  above  referred  to  show  that  some  of 
the  associations  persisted  to  the  end. 

With  respect  to  the  x  values  of  the  last  two  series  (III  and  IV), 
it  may  be  fairly  questioned  whether  they  are  free  from  direct  peripheral 
perception.  The  following  is  testimony  from  the  reagents'  introspec- 
tions : 

Reagent  16 :    Saw  no  numbers  or  spots. 

Reagent  18:    Did  not  know  there  were  any  digits  on  cards;    did  not  see  spots. 

Reagent  19 :    Without  knowledge  of  digits  or  spots  throughout. 

Reagent  21 :    Did  not  know  a  digit  was  shown. 

Reagent  26 :  Knew  digit  was  on  card,  but  did  not  know  which  digits ;  did 
not  know  they  grew  closer  in  Series  II-IV. 

Reagent  27:  Did  not  see  any  digits  or  spots,  but  learned  that  digits  were  on 
cards,  somewhere  about  half  way  through  Series  I. 

Reagent  20 :  Knew  digits  were  there  but  did  not  know  what  ones.  But  after 
first  few  series  did  not  notice  the  dark  spot  in  corner  [of  card]  ;  did  not  know 
that  in  Series  II-IV  the  dark  spot  moved  closer. 

Definite  report  is  available  from  only  about  half  of  the  reagents, 
but  no  reagents  made  a  greater  number  of  R  cases  in  the  respective 
series  than  some  of  the  reagents  quoted  above.  With  respect  to  the  vis- 
ibility of  the  digit  in  Series  III  and  IV,  we  shall  have  to  rely  upon  the 
results  of  the  reagents  in  Section  II  who  knew  that  they  were  there  and 
tried  to  see  them.  It  is  possible  that  direct  perception  played  some  part 
in  the  x  value  (10.7%)  of  Series  IV,  but,  as  implied  above,  the  advan- 
tage is  not  distinguishable  in  amount  from  the  effect  of  subliminal  im- 
pression on  the  guessing  of  the  reagents  who  perceived  no  digits. 


EXPERIMENTS  ON    PERIPHERAL   IMPRESSION 


211 


Section  II.  In  Section  II,  although  there  were  not  as  many  experi- 
ments carried  out  as  would  be  necessary  to  acquire  scientific  proof  of 
the  influence  of  subliminal  impression,  there  is  good  support  for  Section 
I  in  indicating  a  gradation  of  influence  as  the  digit  approached  foveal 
vision.    The  data  are  summarized  in  the  following  table: 

TABLE  LXXI. 

Summary  of  Section  II.     p  =  20%. 

Series I  II  HI  IV 

Visual  angle 8°  6°  4  2 

Number  of  reagents    9  9  9  IO 

Number   of   experiments    270  270  180  200 

Number  of  Letter   R    240  261  175  '95 

%    Digit   R    21.7  24.2  28.0  47-2 

x    2.13  5.25  10.0  34.0 

x/L 0.20  0.50  0.70  2.80 

The  extra-chance  influence  (x)  in  the  last  series  (IV)  is  2.8  times 
the  chance-limit ;  valid  peripheral  perception  having  played  a  greater 
part  than  in  the  preceding  Section,  since  these  reagents  knew  not  only 
what  digits  were  displayed,  but  where  they  were  displayed,  and  directed 
their  attention  accordingly.  Since  the  extra-chance  influence  was  not 
more  than  34%,  the  conditions  of  perception  were  still  below  the  con- 
ventional limen  (50%)  of  perception.  This  fact,  in  connection  with  the 
indications  in  the  last  two  tables,  of  a  gradation  of  influence  correspond- 
ing inversely  to  the  change  in  angular  distance  between  digit  and  line 
of  vision,  emphasizes  the  conclusiveness  of  the  results  shown  in  Table 
LXVIII,  in  their  demonstration  of  the  influence  of  subliminal  im- 
pression. 

Introspective  report  of  the  reagents  who  knew  where  the  digits 
were  and  endeavored  to  see  them,  supports  the  assumption  that  the  8° 
peripheral  impression  was  safely  beyond  the  limits  of  peripheral  per- 
ception : 

Reagent  39 :  Saw  the  spot  in  Series  IV  (20)  but  am  not  sure  of  any  [guesses 
of]  digits.     (R  cases  =  45%). 

Reagent  37:    Saw  digits  in  Series  IV  only.     (R  =  35%)- 

Reagent  34:  Could  see  digit  occasionally  in  Series  III  (4°)  (R=iS%), 
and  more  often  in  Series  IV   (2°)    (R  =  45%). 

Reagent  33:  Perceived  digits  [spots]  in  latter  part  of  Series  III  (4°).  but  I 
could  not  tell  what  they  were;  could  tell  only  that  they  were  there.  (R=  15%  ; 
in  Series  IV,  R  =  25%). 

Reagent   30 :     In   first   experiment   of   Series    IV   saw   both   the   B   and   the  4 


212  SUBLIMINAL  IMPRESSION 

(R  =  8s%;  in  Series  III  (4°),  R  =  50% ;  in  Series  II  (6°),  33% ;  in  I  (8°), 
17% — chance  in  all  20%). 

Reagent  31:  Was  able  to  see  most  of  the  digits  in  Series  IV  (2°)  (R  =  8s%; 
in  Series  III  (4°),  R  =  35%)- 

Reagent  35:  In  Series  III  and  IV  I  could  see  that  the  digits  were  in  a  dif- 
ferent spot,  that  they  were  coming  nearer  to  the  letter;  I  could  see  them  but  I 
could  not  make  them  out.  I  thought  I  saw  a  digit  once  in  the  last  series  (IV, 
20,  R  =  30%). 

Hence,  under  the  conditions  of  full  knowledge  of  the  position  of 
the  digit  and  an  inclination  to  see  it  if  possible,  some  reagents  can  occa- 
sionally see  the  digit  in  Series  IV  (angular  distance  2°)  and  rarely  in 
Series  III  (angular  distance  40).  The  values  of  x  in  the  last  table  may, 
consequently,  be  inferred  to  be  constituted  largely  of  the  influence  of 
subliminal  impression.  The  table  supports  the  deduction  above  concern- 
ing the  counter-influence  of  associations,  since,  owing  to  the  smaller 
number  of  experiments  (30)  made  by  a  single  reagent  in  Series  I,  there 
is  no  drop  in  the  x  value  of  Series  II,  as  was  the  case  in  Section  I, 
where  the  reagent  made  100  experiments  in  Series  I. 

Before  leaving  this  division  of  our  investigation,  two  special  inci- 
dents connected  with  it  should  perhaps  be  reported. 

( 1 )  It  was  customary  for  two  students  to  work  together,  one  fill- 
ing the  office  of  experimenter,  the  other  that  of  reagent.  Thus  the  first 
reagent  could  be  kept  free  from  knowledge  about  the  digit,  and  his  re- 
sults contributed  to  Section  I;  the  second  reagent  had  acted  as  experi- 
menter, knew  about  the  digits,  and  confined  his  guesses  to  the  five  digits 
presented;  but  since  a  new  set  of  cards  was  used  for  him  with  a  new  dis- 
tribution of  digits  over  the  capitals,  he  was  instructed  to  free  himself 
from  any  associations  he  had  made  during  his  performance  as  experi- 
menter. His  results  contributed  to  Section  II.  One  second  reagent, 
however,  tnrough  error  was  given  the  same  set  of  cards  in  her  first 
series  that  she  had  handled  as  experimenter,  and  guessing,  being  con- 
trolled by  associations  she  must  have  made,  resulted  in  28  R  cases  out 
of  29  experiments  in  which  the  letter  was  correctly  recorded.  Before 
learning  of  the  results,  she  wrote  the  following  introspection :  "I  knew 
that  with  every  letter  there  was  a  digit  and  that  each  letter  had  the  same 
digit  every  time,  but  I  did  not  know  what  the  digit  was  for  each  letter." 
Three  explanations  offer  themselves  :  ( 1 )  She  had  unconsciously  formed 
the  associations  while  handling  the  cards  as  experimenter;  (2)  she  was 
extremely  susceptible  to  the  subliminal  influence  and  formed  the  asso- 
ciations immediately  upon  the  presentation  of  the  cards  to  her  as  re- 
agent;  or  (3)  her  introspection  is  unreliable.    Since  she  seemed  to  fully 


EXPERIMENTS  ON   PERIPHERAL  IMPRESSION  213 

realize  the  responsibility  of  assisting  in  a  research  the  results  of  which 
were  expected  to  be  published,  and  since  her  associations  persisted  in 
succeeding  series  in  opposition  to  subliminal  impressions  of  different 
digits,  the  first  explanation  seems  the  most  satisfactory,  and,  if  true,  im- 
plies a  remarkable  performance  in  unconscious  association.  Her  re- 
sults, of  course,  were  not  used  in  the  tables.50 

(2)  Reagent  -?J  had  been  found  to  be  a  fairly  ready  crystal-gazer, 
and  he  was  provided  with  a  glass  paper-weight,  topped  with  a  spheroidal 
knob  about  3.5  cm.  in  diameter,  into  which  he  looked  for  his  digits,  thus 
dispensing  with  direct  guessing.  He  was  not  to  influence  the  digit  in 
any  way,  but  to  record  the  digit  that  appeared.  His  results  were  higher 
in  R  cases  than  the  average,  as  may  be  seen,  for  Series  I,  from  Table 
LXVIII  ;51  per  cents  of  R  cases  in  Series  II-IV  being  10.3,  27.6,  and 
70.6  respectively.  Concerning  the  process,  he  said  that  part  of  the  letter, 
always  projected  into  the  crystal  normal  size,  suggested  the  form  of  the 
digit,  which  came  immediately  and  appeared  objective  and  definite.  But 
since  the  digits  recorded  with  the  letters  changed  freely  from  series  to 
series,  the  suggestion  was  evidently  not  provided  by,  or  confined  to,  the 
form  of  the  exhibited  capital.  The  crystal,  apparently,  served  as  a  de- 
vice for  converting  the  subliminal  impressions  into  hallucinatory  per- 
ceptions. 


60  The  reagent  has  read  this  paragraph  in  the  manuscript  and  affirms  that  it 
should  not  be  crossed  out ;  that  the  inference  concerning  the  "unconscious  asso- 
ciation" must  be  correct. 

51  Supra,  p.  207. 


214  SUBLIMINAL   IMPRESSION 


Division  IV.    Miscellaneous  Series. 

The  miscellaneous  series  of  experiments  reported  in  Division  IV 
are  to  be  regarded  as  supplementary  to  those  reported  in  the  foregoing 
divisions.  Although  they  are  fewer  in  number,  were  performed  under 
less  rigorous  experimental  control,  and,  consequently,  are  of  a  lower 
order  of  proof  for  the  influence  of  subliminal  impression  upon  judg- 
ment, they  are  in  some  cases  sufficiently  positive  to  warrant  their  rec- 
ord ;  and  their  inclusion  in  our  report  is  essential  to  the  ideal  of  report- 
ing all  the  facts,  a  departure  from  which  would  expose  the  report  to  the 
criticism  that  only  selected  results  were  displayed. 

The  stimuli  presented  and  the  method  of  experiment  were  suggested 
by  work  reported  in  psychical  research  literature.  The  following  tabu- 
lation will  show  in  outline  the  nature  and  number  of  the  experiments  in 
each  of  the  four  sections : 

Number  of 
Subliminal  Impression  from  Reagents     Experiments 

§  I.       Corneal  reflections  of  playing-cards  2  400 

§  II.     Playing-cards  viewed  at   a   distance    7  900 

§  III.  Whispering  of  the  stimulus — 

1.  Whispering  of  letters   and   digits 4  800 

2.  1st  Series.      Whispering   of   playing-cards 2  200 

2d  "  "  "  "  "      2  400 

3.  Whispering  of  numbers    1  60 

§  IV.    Involuntary  signs    (number-guessing)    I  60 

Totals     19  2820 

§  I.      SUBLIMINAL  IMPRESSIONS   FROM    CORNEAL   REFLECTIONS. 

Reflections  from  the  cornea  of  the  eye,  it  is  often  said,52  may  play 
an  important  role  in  feats  of  mind-reading  and  even  in  experiments  in 
thought-transference  when  the  percipient  faces  the  agent.  They  are 
definite,  minute,  fleeting,  elusive ;  possible  stimuli  for  testing  the  influ- 
ence of  subliminal  impression.  Consequently  two  students  took  turns  in 
acting  as  experimenter  and  reagent,  performing  two  sets  of  100  experi- 
ments each  in  card-guessing.  Conditions  were  made  favorable  for  see- 
ing the  reflection.  The  experimenter  sat  with  his  back  to  the  light  (his 
right  eye  in  shadow),  and  when  he  drew  a  card  he  held  it  up  about  four 
or  five  inches  from  his  face  and  slightly  to  the  right  side,  in  good  light. 

62  Vide,  Bergson  :    Revue  Philosophique,  1886,  22:531. 


EXPERIMENTS   WITH    CORNEAL  REFLECTION  215 

The  reagent  watched  for  the  corneal  reflection  at  a  distance  of  about 
two  feet.  Judgment  was  given  separately  upon  color,  number,  and  suit, 
and  perceptions  were  underscored ;  guesses  were  left  without  under- 
score. The  conditions  of  perception  may  be  seen  from  the  following 
table : 

TABLE  LXXII. 

Underscored  Records. 

Color                 Number  Suit 

Set                                Total         R        Total          R  Total  R  Experiments 

I    So           48           91            81  6  4                   100 

II    100           99           45           43  7  7                   I0° 

III     98           95            50           46  15  13                   100 

IV    9  8  95  76  o  o  ioo 

It  is  seen  that  for  one  reagent  (Sets  I  and  IV)  the  number  of 
spots,  and  for  the  other  (Sets  II  and  III)  the  color,  is  the  clearest  fea- 
ture of  the  reflected  image ;    suit  is  particularly  difficult  to  determine. 

The  success  of  the  guesses  is  shown  in  the  following  table: 

TABLE  LXXIII. 
Corneal  Reflection.     Guesses. 
Color  Number  Suit 


Set 

No. 

R 

%R 

No. 

R 

%R 

No. 

R 

%R 

I 

So 

41 

80 

9 

2 

22 

94 

57 

61 

II 

55 

30 

55 

93 

50 

54 

III 

2 

1 

50 

26 

52 

85 

40 

47 

IV 

9i 

79 

87 

5 

2 

100 

56 

56 

Totals 

143 

121 

119 

60 

372 

203 

% 

84.6 

50.5 

54-6 

p% 

50 

10 

40.8 

Dev. 

+34-6 

+40.5 

+13.8 

The  deviations  are  sufficiently  large  to  make  the  presence  of  an  ex- 
tra-chance influence  certain.  On  number,  however,  it  is  certainly  aug- 
mented by  reflections  of  spots  of  such  a  character  that  they  afforded  a 
basis  for  approximation,  and  chance  would  not  be  merely  10%  ;  nor  is 
there  any  way  of  estimating  it.  And  chance  on  suit  is  estimated  on  the 
basis  of  257  underscores  for  color.  Of  course,  when  the  color  is  known 
p  for  suit  is  50^  ;   but  if  color  is  not  known  it  is  25%. 

(p=  (-5Q  +  257)  +  (-25X143)  8) 

400 


216 


SUBLIMINAL  IMPRESSION 


Since  the  suit  is  the  safest  stimulus  for  testing  for  the  influence  of 
subliminal  impression,  it  merits  more  thorough  consideration.  A  retab- 
ulation  gives  the  following  table : 


TABLE 

LXXIV 

Guesses 

on   Suit. 

Color  Underscored 

Set 

No. 

R 

%R 

P 

I 

47 

27 

57 

SO 

II 

93 

50 

53-7 

50 

III 

83 

40 

48 

SO 

IV 

9 

5 

55-5 

SO 

Totals 

232 

122 

% 

52-5 

P 

50 

Dev. 

+2-5 

X 

5% 

x/L 

0.36 

Color  Not  Underscored 
No.  R  %R  P 

30  64  25 


47 


91 


138 


66 


25 


81 

58.7 
25 
+33-7 
45% 
2.9 

When  the  corneal  reflection  was  clear  enough  for  the  color  to  be 
perceived,  the  deviation  of  R  cases  from  the  probable  per  cent  on  suit 
(+2.5%)  is  not  large  enough  to  demand  attention;  the  corresponding 
x  value  being  only  5%,  which  is  but  36%  of  the  chance-limit. 

When  the  reflection,  however,  was  not  clear  enough  for  the  color  to 
be  perceived,  and  the  probable  per  cent  of  R  cases  due  to  chance  was 
25%,  the  deviation  of  R  cases  is  large  and  significant  (+33.7)  ;  the  cor- 
responding x  value  being  2.9  times  the  chance-limit,  which  for  so  short 
a  series  is  very  large. 

We  have,  then,  two  significant  extra-chance  values:  84.6%  on 
color  (Table  LXXIII),  and  58.7%  on  suit  (Table  LXXIV);  the  a 
value  for  the  former  is  68.2%,  and  is  4.06  times  the  chance-limit.  Both 
values  are  the  results  of  the  work  of  but  one  of  the  reagents  (Sets  I  and 
IV).  There  is  no  satisfactory  way  to  determine  how  much  error,  ow- 
ing, say,  to  inexpert  introspection  in  underscoring,  is  included  in  these 
values.  But  in  the  light  of  the  results  with  the  peripheral  digit  guess- 
ing, it  would  be  not  unreasonable  to  accept  these  values  as  indicative  of 
considerable  subliminal  influence  from  the  corneal  reflection  of  spots  on 
playing-cards. 


EXPERIMENTS  WITH    PLAYING-CARDS  217 


§  II.     SUBLIMINAL  IMPRESSIONS  OF  PLAYING-CARDS  AT  A  DISTANCE. 

Both  Sidis  and  Stroh,  Shaw,  and  Washburn63  used  traced  or 
printed  characters  (letters,  or  letters  and  digits)  for  stimuli,  and  made 
the  impression  subliminal  by  placing  the  stimulus  so  far  away  from  the 
reagent  that  it  could  not  be  perceived.  The  uniformity  of  spots  in  a 
pack  of  playing-cards  (court  cards  eliminated)  suggested  their  use  in 
a  similar  way.  Especially,  the  forms  of  the  spots  (suit),  which  in  the 
experiments  with  corneal  reflection  proved  to  be  excellent  stimuli,  were 
expected  to  provide  subliminal  impressions  the  influence  of  which  could 
be  decisively  demonstrated. 

Consequently,  900  experiments  were  carried  out  with  seven  re- 
agents. Each  characteristic  of  the  stimulus,  Color,  Number  of  spots, 
and  Suit,  was  judged  separately ;  and  if  perceived  the  record  was  under- 
scored. A  linen-finish  card M  with  very  clear,  well-printed  spots  was 
used.  Reagents  I-IV,  VI,  and  VII  were  stationed  32  meters  from  the 
card ;  Reagents  II  and  V,  25  meters ;  and  Reagent  777,  10  meters.  The 
following  table  gives  the  gross  results : 


TABLE  LXXV. 

Guessing  of  Cards  at 

a  Distance. 

Underscored 

A 

■\ 

Not  Underscored 

A 

Reagent    Color 

Number 

Suit 

Col 

or 

Number 

Suit 

No. 

R 

No. 

R 

No. 

R 

No. 

R 

No. 

R 

No. 

R 

/ 

100 

99 

96 

79 

97 

66 

0 

0 

4 

0 

3 

1 

2 

54 

49 

2 

1 

4 

2 

46 

33 

98 

35 

96 

39 

3 

54 

53 

53 

5i 

0 

0 

46 

45 

47 

38 

100 

38 

94 

94 

89 

88 

0 

0 

6 

6 

11 

8 

100 

67 

88 

88 

89 

87 

0 

0 

4 

3 

3 

0 

92 

54 

4 

74 

62 

22 

17 

0 

0 

26 

22 

78 

46 

100 

47 

5 

28 

23 

1 

1 

1 

1 

72 

45 

99 

12 

99 

33 

6 

67 

59 

49 

49 

0 

0 

33 

24 

51 

32 

100 

43 

7 

99 

95 

80 

64 

29 

19 

1 

0 

20 

14 

71 

31 

658 

622 

481 

437 

131 

88 

234 

178 

411 

185 

761 

353 

%R 

94-5 

90.8 

67.2 

76.0 

450 

46.4 

P 

50 

10 

41.4 

Dev. 

+16 

+35 

+5-0 

X 

32 

8.5 

x/L 

2.3 

1.28 

53  Vide,  pp.  177  ff .,  and  186  ff.,  supra. 

84  Aristocrat,  linen  finish,  Kalamazoo  Playing  Card  Company. 


218 


SUBLIMINAL  IMPRESSION 


The  left  half  of  the  table  indicates,  by  the  amount  of  underscoring, 
and  the  accuracy  of  the  underscored  records,  the  general  conditions  of 
perception.  The  remaining  part  of  the  table  gives  the  guesses,  upon 
which  the  amount  of  influence  of  subliminal  impression  must  be  deter- 
mined. The  deviations  from  the  probable  per  cent  of  R  cases  are: 
Color  +16,  Number  +35,  Suit  +5.  And  since  Number  may  be  approxi- 
mated by  the  apparent  fullness  of  the  card  or  by  the  pattern  of  the  spots, 
the  corresponding  deviation  must  be  disregarded.  On  Color  the  amount 
of  extra-chance  influence  (x)  is  32%,  which  is  2.3  times  the  chance- 
limit;  on  Suit  it  is  8.5%,  1.28  times  the  chance-limit,  p  for  Suit,  how- 
ever, was  calculated,55  and  our  knowledge  would  be  more  satisfactory 
if  the  guesses  on  the  Suit  were  segregated  and  the  respective  deviations 
from  the  two  probabilities  were  used  separately  for  determining  x 
values.    The  segregated  data  are  shown  in 


TABLE 

LXXVI. 

Guesses 

on  Suit. 

Color  Underscored 

Color 

Not  Underscored 

Reagent 

No. 

R 

%R 

No. 

R 

%R 

2 

44 

24 

54-5 

47 

IS 

319 

3 

(54 

19 

35-2) 

6 

5 

88 

64 

72.6 

6 

3 

84 

51 

60.7 

4 

3 

4 

59 

33 

55-9 

27 

11 

40.7 

5 

22 

12 

54-5 

73 

20 

27.4 

6 

57 

31 

54-4 

33 

12 

364 

7 

68 

31 

45-6 

2 

0 

. 











Total 

476 

265 

198 

69 

% 

557 

38.8 

p 

50 

25 

Dev. 

+57 

+13-8 

X 

1 1.4 

18.4 

x/L 

1. 17 

1.42 

Or  Total 

422 

246 

252 

88 

% 

58.3 

35 

p 

50 

25 

Dev. 

+8.3 

+10 

x 

16.6 

13-3 

x/L 

1.6 
(234  X  -25)  +  (622  X  .50)  _ 

.414  =  41.4%- 

When 

1. 15 
Color    was 

under- 

55  p  = 

892 

,         , 

...i-Anir     t1-i*i    rVinnr 

»  -for  R  cas 

es  on  Suit  is 

3 ;    when 

right,  50% 

when 

unknown,  25%. 


EXPERIMENTS  WITH    WHISPERING  219 

The  x  values  are  positive  and  they  exceed  their  respective  chance- 
limits,  indicating  certainly  an  extra-chance  influence  upon  the  guessing 
of  the  Suit  both  when  the  color  was  known  and  when  it  was  unknown. 
The  35.270  R,  of  Reagent  ///  under  "Color  Underscored,"  really  be- 
longs to  the  other  side  of  the  table,  since  the  reagent,  a  Japanese,  ex- 
plained that  he  did  not  know  what  suits  were  black  and  what  red.  If 
it  is  transferred,  the  respective  x  values  become  16.6%  and  13.3%  ;  x/L, 
1.6  and  1.1 5;  no  essential  change  being  made  in  the  evidence  for  the 
influence  of  the  subliminal  impression  of  distant  card-spots  upon  the 
guessing  of  Suit.  Of  course,  this  evidence  stands  upon  the  trustworthi- 
ness of  the  underscoring;  but  Table  LXXV  indicates  that  the  under- 
scoring occurred  on  records  that  must  have  been  much  below  clear  per- 
ception, only  67.2%  of  the  underscored  records  on  Suit  being  right. 
The  spot,  therefore,  seems  quite  satisfactory  as  a  stimulus  to  be  made 
subliminal  by  distance.  There  is  a  source  of  error,  however,  arising 
from  the  conventional  spot  patterns  of  the  cards  which  enables  the  re- 
agent to  infer  the  Suit  of  a  fairly  full  card :  a  nine-spot  or  ten-spot  of 
Hearts  is  a  redder  card  than  the  corresponding  Diamonds ;  '"Diamonds 
look  larger  than  Hearts  and,  if  placed  one  above  another,  seem  more  con- 
nected at  the  distance  of  32  meters."  "Clubs  look  rounder  than  Spades, 
and  a  number  of  them  gives  a  somewhat  blurred  effect  not  given  by 
Spades,"  says  Reagent  VI;  but  Reagent  VII  said,  "As  to  suit,  this  was 
a  guess  most  of  the  time,  Spades  appeared  to  be  a  larger  blur  than 
Clubs ;  Hearts  and  Diamonds  were  a  quandary ;  could  distinguish 
neither  correctly  and  had  no  basis  to  start  a  guess  on.  Sometimes  I 
recognized  a  stronger  blur  and  called  that  Hearts,  as  a  card  of  Hearts 
is  covered  with  a  little  more  red  than  a  card  of  Diamonds." 

This  error  would  seem  to  be  largely  limited  to  the  full  cards  seen 
well  enough  to  determine  the  color,  and,  consequently,  would  affect  but 
part  of  Table  LXXVI.  If  the  color  of  the  blur  could  not  be  dis- 
tinguished, it  is  improbable  that  the  actual  differences  in  the  size  of  the 
spots  would  rise  above  the  threshold  of  discrimination. 

§  III.      THE   WHISPERING  OF  THE  STIMULUS. 

An  explanation  offered  in  the  early  days  for  the  successful  experi- 
ments in  Thought-Trans ference  was  the  unconscious  perception  of  in- 
voluntary  whispering,60    and   recent   experiments 6T   have   strongly   sug- 

56  Vide,  Hansen  and  Lehmann,  op.  cit. 

57  Vide,  Stroll,  Shaw,  and  Washburn,  op.  cit. 


220 


SUBLIMINAL  IMPRESSION 


gested  that  the  whispering  of  letters  increases  R  cases  in  guessing  even 
though  the  reagent  hears  no  sound. 

In  order  to  test  further  the  hypothesis  that  subliminal  auditory  im- 
pressions may  influence  judgment,  the  following  experiments  were 
made.  The  stimuli  were  varied:  whispered  names  of  (a)  letters  and 
digits,  (b)  playing-cards,  and  (c)  numbers. 


/.  The  Whispering  of  Letters  and  Digits. 

Four  reagents,  all  men,  made  800  experiments  in  recording  from 
whispers  of  letters  or  digits  originating  at  a  source  25  meters  distant. 
The  same  letters  and  digits  and  the  same  general  method  of  procedure 
were  used  as  in  the  Tachistoscopic  experiments.  The  whispering  of 
the  character  was  not  begun  until  after  trial  a  manner  of  whispering,  as 
to  intensity  and  articulation,  was  found  which  was  judged  to  be  just 
below  the  limen  of  perception. 

As  before,  perceptions  were  underscored  twice  if  the  whispered  let- 
ter was  perceived,  once  if  the  whispering  helped  the  guess ;  only  spon- 
taneous guesses  were  recorded  without  underscoring.  In  Series  I  each 
reagent  was  in  ignorance  of  what  letters  or  digits  were  being  presented 
(chance  =  2.8%)  ;  in  Series  II  he  limited  his  guesses  to  them  (chance 
=  10%). 

TABLE  LXXVII. 

Guesses  of  Whispered  Letters  and   Digits. 
Series   I.     />  =2.8%. 


Reagent 

/ 
2 
3 

4 

Total 

% 

P 

Dev. 

x 

x/L 


No.  of 
Experiments 
100 
100 
100 
100 

400 


Perceptions 


Total 

9 
6 

2 


R 

4 
5 
2 


n 
65 


Inferences 


Total 

26 

55 
6 

7 
94 


R 

7 

29 

1 

0 

37 
39-6 


Guesses 


Total 

65 
39 
92 

93 
289 


R 
6 

7 
4 
4 

21 

7.26 
2.8 
+4.46 
4-6 
1. 12 


%R 

9.2 

18.0 

4-3 

43 


EXPERIMENTS   WITH    WHISPERING 


221 


TABLE  LXXVII  (Continued). 
Series  II.     p  =  10%. 


Reagent 

i 

2 

3 
4 

Total 


P 

Dev. 
x 
x/L 


No. 

of 

Percept 

ons 

Inferences 

Guesses 

%R 

perir 

nent 

;    Total 

R 

Total 

R 

Total 

R 

IOO 

16 

11 

40 

24 

44 

4 

91 

100 

12 

10 

54 

29 

34 

S 

147 

IOO 

3 

3 

97 

12 

12.4 

IOO 

IOO 

12 

12 

400 

3i 

24 
77 

94 

S3 
S6.4 

275 

35 

12 

10 

+2 
2.2 
0.29 

The  deviations  for  the  respective  series  are  +4.46%  and  +2%  ;  the 
x  values  are  4.6  and  2.2;  and  the  */£  values,  1. 12  and  0.29.  Conse- 
quently, in  Series  I  the  #  value,  since  it  exceeds  the  limit  of  chance  devi- 
ation, portrays  definitely  an  extra-chance  cause  operating  for  R  guesses ; 
but  in  Series  II  the  corresponding  value,  being  only  29%  of  the  devia- 
tion from  the  probable  per  cent  which  may  be  expected  by  chance,  is 
not  determinative.  Since  all  but  one  of  the  sets  in  the  latter  series,  how- 
ever, show  a  positive  deviation  from  the  probable  number  of  R  cases, 
the  x  value  of  the  series  is  probably  not  due  to  chance. 

The  decisive  value  for  an  extra-chance  cause  in  Series  I  becomes 
still  more  satisfactory  as  a  determination  of  the  effect  of  subliminal 
auditory  impressions  upon  judgment  when  it  is  recognized  that  the  un- 
derscoring was  carried  out  to  a  level  considerably  below  the  threshold 
of  perception,  only  65%  of  the  perceptions  being  right,  and  39.6%  of 
the  inferences.  The  remaining  records  are  thus  pretty  certain  to  be 
spontaneous  guesses,  free  from  the  error  of  inexpertness  in  intro- 
spection. 

Tabulation  of  the  wrong  guesses  for  the  purpose  of  learning 
whether  they  were  more  often  right  as  to  classification,  than  they  should 
be  by  chance  (i.  e.  letter  for  letter,  and  digit  for  digit),  yields  only 
chance  deviations  from  the  probable  per  cent.  No  subliminal  classifica- 
tion has  taken  place. 


222 


SUBLIMINAL  IMPRESSION 


2.  The  Whispering  of  P laying-Cards. 

Two  series  of  experiments  were  carried  out  with  the  intention  of 
seeking  the  effect  of  slight  whispering  upon  card-guessing.  In  Series  I 
two  reagents  performed  ioo  experiments  each  under  conditions  analogous 
to  .those  of  the  thought-transference  experiments  described  above.570  The 
chief  variation  in  method  was  that  when  the  dice  cast  odd  the  name  of 
the  card  was  lightly  whispered.  In  Series  II  all  the  cards  drawn  were 
lightly  whispered.  Two  reagents  performed  200  experiments  each.  In 
both  series  the  reagent  sat  32  meters  distant  from  the  experimenter,  who 
whispered  the  names  of  the  cards  (as,  5  of  Hearts).  The  following 
table  shows  the  results : 


Reagent 
/ 

2 

Probability 


TABLE  LXXVIII. 
Guesses  of  Whispered  Cards.     %  Right. 


Series  I. 

Card  Not  Whispered 
Card    Color     No.      Suit    Total 

4  39  16  20  49 

4  46  8  17  48 


2-5       50 


10 


25 


Card 
2 
4 


Card  Whispered 
Color      No.      Suit  Total 
39  8  18  51 

65  13  26  52 


2.5       50 


25 


Probable  % 


Series  II. 

2 

45 

7 

25 

100 

2 

62 

7 

29 

100 

1 

47 

14 

24 

100 

2 

55 

9 

32 

100 

2.5     50 


25 


The  deviations  of  R  cases  from  the  probable  per  cent  in  both  series 
are  much  too  small  to  indicate  any  extra-chance  influence  upon  the 
whispering.  In  Series  II,  Suit,  in  the  last  set,  seems  to  have  some  ad- 
vantage;  but  to  be  decisive  it  should  be  43%  instead  of  32%.  The 
whispering  does  not  appear  to  have  had  any  influence  upon  the  guessing. 

3.   The  Whispering  of  Numbers. 
Remembering    the    success    of    the    "Unwillktirliche    Pfliistern"    of 


""  Supra,  pp.  48  ff. 


INVOLUNTARY  SIGNALS  223 

Hansen  and  Lehmann 58  when  they  conducted  their  guessing  experi- 
ments with  the  aid  of  large  parabolic  mirrors  at  the  respective  foci  of 
which  the  closed  mouth  of  the  experimenter  and  the  attentive  ear  of  the 
reagent  were  placed,  we  designed,  for  demonstration  purposes  primar- 
ily, a  series  of  60  experiments  in  which  the  student  acted  as  experiment- 
er and  the  writer  as  reagent.  The  numbers  chosen  for  the  experimenter 
to  whisper  so  lightly  that  no  movement  of  the  lips  or  throat,  and  no 
sound,  could  be  detected  by  an  observer,  were  2,  3,  and  8.  A  short 
pasteboard  tube  made  communication  between  the  left  ear  of  the  ex- 
perimenter and  the  right  ear  of  the  reagent,  slight  sounds  due  to  changes 
in  breathing  were  heard  through  the  tube  at  the  moment  of  "involun- 
tary" whispering,  and  R  cases  were  52%,  28%  59  being  due  to  the  influ- 
ence of  the  slight  sounds. 

§  IV.      INVOLUNTARY  SIGNALS 

A  short  series  of  experiments  designed  to  demonstrate  the  fact  of 
involuntary  signals  was  carried  out  by  two  women  students  from  one 
of  the  writer's  classes. 

One  of  the  students,  who  had  a  definite  "number  form,"  that  is,  a 
spatial  system  over  which  the  number-series  was  distributed,  acted  as 
experimenter.  The  other,  who  was  confidentially  instructed  in  the  es- 
sentials of  the  "number  form,"  acted  as  reagent  and  did  the  "guessing." 
The  three  numbers  (  10,  20,  30)  selected  for  the  experimenter  to  "think" 
lay  in  distinctly  different  locations  in  the  scheme.  Each  student  was  pro- 
vided with  a  ruled  form  containing  60  spaces.  The  experimenter  closed 
her  eyes  and  thought  of  a  number,  which  she  recorded  after  the  re- 
agent had  recorded  a  guess.  The  latter  formed  her  guess  after  watch- 
ing the  movement  of  the  cornea  of  the  eye  under  the  experimenter's 
closed  lids.  Occasionally  this  movement  betrayed  the  number  thought 
of  by  locating  spatially  its  position  in  the  "number-form."  The  reagent 
was  inexpert  and  skeptical  of  success;  yet  her  R  cases  equaled  60%, 
40%  60  being  due  to  the  influence  of  the  involuntary  signs.  Her  skep- 
ticism indicates  that  the  assistance  was  mainly  unconsciously  used ;  that 
is,  that  subliminal  impressions  of  the  involuntary  signals  possibly  influ- 
enced her  judgments. 


58  Vide,  supra,  p.  32. 

59  x  =  .52  —  p  (1  —  x)  =  28%.     x/L  =  1. 12. 
ao.r  =  .6o  —  p  (1  —  x)  =40%.     x/L  =1.8. 


224  subliminal  impression 

Conclusion. 

The  influence  of  subliminal  impressions,  of  capitals  and  digits  pre- 
sented by  a  tachistoscope  to  foveal  vision,  produced  in  spontaneous 
guessing  from  5%  to  7%  Right  cases.  That  this  effect  is  only  about 
25%  of  that  found  by  Sidis  and  about  17%  of  that  found  by  Stroh, 
Shaw,  and  Washburn,  may  be  owing  to  two  radical  departures  in  the 
method  of  experimentation:  (1)  The  stimulus  was  rendered  subliminal 
by  decreasing  the  time  of  exposure  rather  than  by  increasing  the  dis- 
tance between  stimulus  and  reagent;  and  (2)  the  reagent  was  required 
to  designate  a  class  of  records  (inferences  based  upon  partial  percep- 
tion) between  perceptions  and  guesses,  which  proved  to  be  a  large  class, 
and  which  was  excluded  from  consideration.  The  influence  was  opera- 
tive upon  only  about  30%  of  the  reagents ;  and  its  effect  was  mainly  to 
cause  a  right  guess  of  the  particular  character.  There  was  some  indi- 
cation that  it  contributed  to  R  cases  in  the  guessing,  with  respect  to  the 
general  character  of  the  stimulus  (letter  for  letter,  digit  for  digit), 
since  both  styles  of  type  that  were  used  exhibited  characteristic  differ- 
ences between  capitals  and  digits.  For  this  latter  effect,  it  does  not, 
therefore,  seem  necessary  to  assume  a  subliminal  perception  of  the  par- 
ticular characters,61  or  a  subliminal  elaboration  or  the  classification  of 
particular  characters. 

That  the  effective  subliminal  impressions  cannot  be  regarded  merely 
as  sensations  of  sufficient  intensity  and  clearness  to  be  noticed  in  con- 
sciousness but  unnoticed  by  our  reagents  because  of  misdirection  of  at- 
tention incident  to  inexpertness  in  introspection,  is  shown  by  the  effect 
of  digits  presented  to  peripheral  vision  (visual  angle  8°)  during  an 
interval  less  than  the  reaction-time  of  the  eye.  Normal  perception  is 
impossible,  yet  the  effect  was  to  increase  right  guesses  by  about  5%. 

The  results  of  some  of  our  experiments  indicate  that  the  tachisto- 
scopic  control  of  the  stimulus  may  be  less  satisfactory  than  the  distance 
control  for  inciting  the  influence  of  subliminal  impressions.  Corneal 
reflections  of  the  spots  on  playing-cards,  when  too  indefinite  for  the  per- 
ception of  their  color,  exerted  an  extra-chance  influence  on  R  guesses  of 
45%  ;  and  guessing  on  the  same  stimuli  from  a  distance  too  great  to 
afford  perception  of  their  color,  was  influenced  toward  R  cases  to  the 
extent  of  13%. 

Subliminal  influence  of  auditory  stimuli  consisting  of  whispered 
letters  and  dibits  was  found  to  the  extent  of  about  5%,  although  similar 


61  Cf.,  quotations  from  Sidis,  pp.  182  ff.,  supra. 


CONCLUSION  225 

whispering  of  the  names  of  playing-cards  produced  no  noticeable  effect 
upon  the  guesses  of  the  few  reagents  tried. 

In  a  short  series  of  guessing  in  the  presence  of  involuntary  signals 
(movements  of  the  eye),  when  the  extra-chance  influence  amounted  to 
40%,  there  was  strong  indication  that  the  assistance  of  the  involuntary 
signals  was  largely  unconsciously  received. 

Just  how  subliminal  impressions  are  able  to  influence  judgment 
must  remain  a  matter  of  conjecture.  No  doubt  the  neural  processes  set 
up  by  the  stimulus  differ  from  their  analogous  processes  subserving 
conscious  perception  only  in  intensity,  the  essential  difference  between 
their  psychical  concomitants  being  that  the  sensations  accompanying  the 
former  are  not  discovered  and  recognized  by  introspection.  This  lack 
of  recognition  may  result  from  two  distinct  mental  conditions:  (1) 
Abstraction  upon  exclusive  content ;  as,  to  make  use  -of  a  literary  mis- 
cellany, Newton's  astonishment,  upon  reaching  home,  at  finding  himself 
wet,  resulted  from  his  state  of  mental  abstraction  during  the  homeward 
journey  in  which  his  horse  took  a  short  cut  and  swam  the  mill-pond. 
The  sensations  of  temperature  and  touch  were  supra-liminal  in  intensity, 
but  they  were  disregarded, — a  matter  of  the  direction  of  the  attention. 
(2)  Inability  to  directly  recognize  subliminal  impressions.  Just  as  there 
are  differences  between  sensations  too  small  to  be  clearly  recognized,  as 
between  the  "hefts"  of  the  102-  and  103-gram  weights,  so  there  must  be 
sensations  too  obscure  in  consciousness  to  be  clearly  recognized, — a  mat- 
ter of  "Weber's  Law,"  or  of  the  "Law  of  Relativity."  The  impressions 
are  "subliminal"  in  the  sense  that  they  fall  below  the  conventional  limen 
of  perception ;  not  that  they  fall  below  the  absolute  limen  of  conscious- 
ness. 

It  is  probable  that  both  of  these  conditions  obtained,  perhaps  un- 
equally, in  our  experiments  when  the  presentation  was  made  to  foveal 
vision;  but  only  the  latter  could  have  obtained  when  the  presentation 
was  made  to  peripheral  vision. 

We  have  found,  therefore,  in  our  investigation  of  the  effect  of  sub- 
liminal impression  upon  judgment,  some  experimental  evidence  of  "a 
fringe  of  perceptions,  most  often  unconscious,  but  all  ready  to  enter  into 
consciousness,  and  in  fact  entering  in  in  certain  exceptional  cases  or  in 
certain  predisposed  subjects"  with  which  Professor  Bergson  insisted 
"  'psychical  research'  could  and  should  concern  itself."  62     And  it  must 


62  Vide,  quotation,  p.  170,  supra. 


226  SUBLIMINAL   IMPRESSION 

be  regarded  as  more  than  probable  that,  as  some  investigators  and  critics 
have  suspected,63  this  sort  of  perception  has  played  a  role  in  the  evidence 
for  telepathy  gathered  from  thought-transference  experimentation  and 
from  the  seance-room.  Indeed,  the  argument  offered,  with  specific  ref- 
erence to  his  own  remarkable  experiments  in  thought-transference,  by 
Professor  Gilbert  Murray,  in  his  Presidential  Address  on  The  Fringe 
of  Consciousness  (delivered  in  the  Hall  of  The  Royal  Society  of  Medi- 
cine, London,  July  9,  1 9 1 5 ,  before  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research), 
goes  further : 

(  1 )  The  action  of  what  we  call  telepathy  is  habitual  in  ordinary  human  in- 
tercourse. 

(2)  In  essence  it  consists  in  nothing  more  mysterious  than  the  action  on  the 
mind  of  sense-perceptions  which  are  too  faint  to  establish  themselves,  as  sense- 
perceptions,  above  the  threshold  of  consciousness.64 

Further  investigation  in  this  field  may  profitably  look  toward  the 
determination  of  the  extent  of  the  influence  of  subliminal  impression 
upon  judgment  (a)  in  normal  subjects,  when  the  stimuli  are  not  re- 
moved so  far  from  the  limen  of  normal  perception,  and  when  the  stim- 
uli are  varied  over  the  sense-modes,  and  (b)  in  'sensitive'  or  'psychic' 
subjects. 


63  Vide,  the  abstracts  from  the  literature  at  the  beginning  of  this  Part.     Cf., 
Thomas:     Thought  Transference,  p.  28;    Stout:     Hibbcrt  Jr.,  2:62. 

64  Proceedings  S.P.R.,  1916,  29:48. 


PART  III. 




MENTAL  HABIT 

AND 

INDUCTIVE  PROBABILITY 


\ 


PART  III. 
MENTAL   HABIT,  AND   INDUCTIVE   PROBABILITY. 


The  two  concepts,  Mental  Habit,  and  Inductive  Probability,  are  so 
often  connected  in  the  minds  of  students  of  psychical  research  with  the 
experimental  investigation  of  thought-transference,  as  possible  factors 
of  error  and  delusion,  that  it  has  been  thought  worth  while  to  give  spe- 
cific attention  to  them  x  at  this  point ;  especially  since  they  also  have  an 
equally  vital  bearing  upon  our  Experiments  on  Subliminal  Impression. 

In  the  first  section  of  this  Part  we  shall  endeavor  (i)  to  show,  by 
way  of  illustrations  from  the  most  diverse  sources,  how  inevitably  men- 
tal habit  influences  judgment  irrespective  of  the  field  in  which  judgment 
is  made;  (2)  to  examine  the  bearing  of  this  general  fact  upon  the  in- 
vestigation of  thought-transference;  and  (3)  to  determine  the  amount 
of  extra-chance  influence  which  may  reasonably  be  credited  to  this  cause, 
in  such  experiments  in  thought-transference  as  have  been  reported  in  the 
literature,  and  in  such  experiments  as  we  have  performed  on  Subliminal 
Impression. 

In  the  second  section  of  this  Part  we  shall  endeavor  to  show,  also 
by  way  of  varied  illustrations,  that  empirical  chance  events  occur  in  con- 
formance to  the  mathematical  law  of  chances,  and,  consequently,  that 
the  "Theory  of  Probability"  and  the  statistical  formulae  derived  from  it 
provide  us  with  a  means  which  cannot  fail  to  resolve  doubt  and  con- 
troversy concerning  the  existence  of  the  alleged  phenomena  of  thought- 
transference,  lucidity  (clairvoyance),  and  communications  from  discar- 
nate  personalities  who  have  the  power  of  learning  facts  in  our  world. 

In  these  endeavors  the  data  of  our  experiments  are  brought  under 
tribute,  and,  it  is  hoped,  some  slight  but  positive  contribution  may  be 
made  upon  the  general  topics  of  both  sections. 


1  Professor  Titchener,  as  early  as  1899,  stated  that  in  his  opinion  the  next 
step  in  thought-transference  investigation  should  be  "an  exhaustive  study  of 
number-habits."     {Science,  1899,  9:787.) 


229 


230  MENTAL  HABIT 


MENTAL  HABIT. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  MENTAL   HABIT   UPON   JUDGMENT. 

The  phenomena  of  subliminal  influences  upon  judgment  constitute 
a  fairly  large  class,  only  one  genus  of  which  is  the  influence  from  ordi- 
nary sense  impressions,  which  was  subject  to  investigation  in  Part  II, 
and  since  it  is  of  interest  to  psychical  research  to  explore  thoroughly 
the  "sub-conscious"  phenomena  we  have  an  additional  incentive  to  notice 
another  important  genus  of  subliminal  influence,  which  has  played  a 
role  in  the  evaluation  of  the  results  of  experiments  on  thought-transfer- 
ence, and  for  which  our  data  have  furnished  some  evidence — the  influ- 
ence of  mental  habits  upon  judgment. 

It  has  long  been  known  that  judgments  are  modified  in  such  ways 
as  are  not  creditable  to  the  person  delivering  them,  and  thus  involun- 
tarily, or  in  such  ways  as  show  systematic  or  constant  biases  where  no 
conscious  motive  can  be  conceived  to  operate ;  but  only  after  general 
interest  in  statistical  matters  had  been  developed  in  the  sociological  and 
psychological  fields  did  knowledge  of  the  extent  of  this  involuntary  con- 
trol of  judgment,  and  of  its  nature,  become  definite.  We  now  know  that 
mental  habits  pertain  to  numbers,  letters,  colors,  time  and  space  divi- 
sions, and  to  almost  everything  about  which  a  judgment  can  be  made  at 
all,  and  that  they  are  so  prevalent  that  perhaps  no  considerable  number 
or  class  of  judgments  is  free  from  them,  whether  the  judgments  are  de- 
livered by  a  reagent  in  a  thought-transference  experiment  in  a  psycho- 
logical laboratory,  by  a  judge  of  the  supreme  court  in  sentencing  a  con- 
victed prisoner,  by  a  teacher  who  is  estimating  the  scholastic  merit  of  a 
student  in  assigning  him  a  grade-mark  in  a  specific  subject,  by  an  as- 
tronomer who  is  estimating  the  magnitude  of  a  star,  by  a  signal  service 
meteorologist  in  estimating  the  temperature  or  the  amount  of  precipita- 
tion, or  by  a  psychologist  who  is  estimating  tenths  of  a  vibration  on  a 
kymograph  time-record. 

Let  us  examine  some  of  the  available  statistical  evidence  of  the  in- 
fluence of  mental  habit  upon  judgment. 


influence  of  mental  habit  upon  judgment  231 

Population  by  Age. 

In  the  report  of  the  Twelfth  Census  of  the  United  States  (iooo) 
we  find  the  following  statement  concerning  the  "Round  Number"  ten- 
dency that  people  have  in  reporting  ages : 

In  every  census  of  population  .  .  .  there  is  apparent  a  considerable  concen- 
tration on  certain  years  of  age,  particularly  on  those  that  are  multiples  of  5  and 
10,  and  in  a  somewhat  less  degree  on  the  even  years  of  age  for  persons  less  than 
20  years  old.  This  concentration  is  due  to  the  well  known  tendency  to  state  ages 
in  round  numbers,  especially  in  those  cases  where  the  person  interrogated  is  not 
possessed  of  positive  knowledge  concerning  members  of  the  household  (relatives 
and  boarders)  who  are  absent  at  the  time  of  the  enumerator's  visit.2 

Inspection  of  Plate  XIII,3  which  gives  the  distribution  curve  of  the 
population  between  the  ages  of  I  and  72  years,  for  the  mainland  of  the 
United  States,  according  to  the  Twelfth  Census,  will  verify  the  above 
statement;  and  the  round-number  and  even-number  preferences  are 
found  to  obtain  for  both  male  and  female  population.  An  interesting 
verification  of  the  reliability  of  the  peaks  of  the  curves  as  indicative  of 
preference,  is  seen  in  the  modification  of  the  curves  in  accordance  with 
motives  that  are  well  known :  the  excess  of  the  number  of  women  over 
the  number  of  men  at  the  ages  of  18  and  20,  and  the  relative  increase 
in  the  number  of  women  in  the  early  twenties  and  the  relative  decrease 
in  the  early  thirties.  Statistical  expectation,  of  course,  demands  a  rela- 
tively smooth  curve,  where  the  numbers  are  as  great  as  are  plotted  in 
the  curve,  since  the  real  ages  of  the  population  must  be  fairly  regularly 
distributed,  and  but  small  and  gradual  changes  in  the  relation  of  the  two 
curves. 

Lest  the  reader  suspect  that  the  enumeration  of  the  Twelfth  Cen- 
sus was  not  made  with  especial  care,  in  order  to  decrease  as  much  as 
possible  these  well  known  sources  of  error,  we  quote  the  Chief  Statis- 
tician of  the  Thirteenth  Census  (1910)  : 

In  1900  both  "date  of  birth"  and  "age  at  last  birthday"  were  called  for,  one 
as  a  check  upon  the  accuracy  of  the  other,  and  this  double  return  may  have  re- 
duced somewhat  the  margin  of  error.  .  .  .  The  possible  gain  in  accuracy  from  this 
double  return  did  not  seem,  however,  to  justify  loading  the  population  schedule- 
already  complicated— with  an  additional  inquiry.  It  was,  therefore,  determined 
to  ask  but  one  question  .  .  .  "Age  at  last  birthday  (before  April  15,  1910)."4 


2  Vol.  2,  pp.  xxxv  ff. 

3  Infra,  p.  232. 

4  Report  of  the  Thirteenth  Census,  vol.  1,  p.  291. 


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234  MENTAL  HABIT 

And  Plate  XIV,6  which  gives  the  distribution  curves  for  the  Thir- 
teenth Census,  shows  a  considerable  exaggeration  of  the  number  prefer- 
ences already  pointed  out.  For  example,  although  there  are  at  any  time 
fewer  men  in  the  United  States  at  the  age  of  30  than  at  the  age  of  29, 
the  Twelfth  Census  lists  170,961  more,  and  the  Thirteenth  Census 
238,010  more ;  and  although  there  are  likewise  certainly  fewer  young 
women  at  any  time  at  the  age  of  18  than  at  the  age  of  17,  the  Twelfth 
Census  lists  34,723  more,  and  the  Thirteenth  Census  92,899  more. 

We  may  conclude,  therefore,  from  these  two  sets  of  distribution 
curves, i  ( 1 )  that  there  is  a  specific  set  of  number  preferences  with  re- 
spect to  age-estimation,  which  is  shared  by  people  of  all  ranks  in  life ; 
and'\(2)  that  those  preferences  are  exaggerated  when  greater  freedom 
is  alld\ved  in  giving  estimated  rather  than  true  ages. 

Considering  the  fact  that  the  bulk  of  the  census  returns  were  gath- 
ered from  people  in  the  lower  and  middle  ranks  of  life,  one  might  sur- 
mise that  these  number  preferences  rest  upon  mental  inertia;  that  to  an 
alert  mind  29  is  as  likely  an  estimate  as  30. 

Now,  I  presume  no  class  in  the  country  possesses  a  higher  intellec- 
tual rank,  or  minds  more  keenly  alert,  than  the  judges  of  our  courts. 
If  the  judges  show  number  preference  in  the  terms  for  which  they  com- 
mit convicted  prisoners  to  the  penitentiary,  the  surmise  must  be  wrong. 
It  may  fairly  be  expected  that  degrees  in  the  gravity  of  crime  will  be 
distributed  in  a  regular  fashion,  would  be  represented  by  a  smooth  curve 
over  a  time-scale,  and  that  judges  exercise  care  in  graduating  terms  of 
commitment,  within  the  limits  assigned  by  the  law,  to  the  gravity  of  the 
crime. 

Terms  of  Criminal  Sentences. 

From  the  Eleventh  Census  (1890),  which  provides  the  most  com- 
plete available  data  concerning  crime,  we  learn  that  there  were  63,653 
prisoners  serving  term  sentences  in  our  prisons.  The  terms  of  commit- 
ment, for  an  integral  number  of  years,  are  shown  in  Plate  XV.  Curve 
A  shows  the  distribution  of  the  terms  for  an  integral  number  of  years 
from  5  to  25 ;  Curve  B,  from  20-40 ;  Curve  C  for  fractional  parts  of  a 
year,  given  in  addition  to  one  or  more  years ;  and  Curve  D  for  an  in- 
tegral number  of  months. 

An  examination  of  these  curves  shows  that  the  terms  of  commitment 
of  our  prisoners  were  determined  in  a  marked  degree  by  the  judges' 
preference  for  round  numbers  in  years,  and  for  quarters  of  years  in 
months. 


•  Supra,  p.  233. 


INFLUENCE  OF   MENTAL  HABIT   UPON   JUDGMENT 


235 


It  has  been  suggested,  in  palliation  of  the  judges'  position,  (i)  that 
the  law  provides  for  any  given  crime,  lower  and  upper  limits  of  possible 
sentence  between  which  the  round  numbers  furnish  natural  and  suffi- 
ciently fine  gradations;  and  (2)  that  the  judges  are  fully  aware  of  their 
frequent  preference  for  the  round  numbers  and  do  not  feel  under  obli- 
gations to  use  finer  gradations. 

With  respect  to  the  first  point,  in  order  to  determine  whether  judges 
often  gave  the  limit,  either  upper  or  lower,  and  whether  the  limits  as- 
signed by  the  laws  of  the  respective  states  for  the  various  crimes  were 


c^ 

19  A 

0 

V       ' 

Sentences 

1 

Cnrv 

B    3 

£00 
0 

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-         J 

26  Years       20 
Sentences 


1          Cu 

rve  D 

9     10     llwonttis..    1 


Plate  XV. —  Terms  of  Criminal   Sentence  in  the  United  States. 
Eleventh  Census    (1890). 


usually  in  round  numbers,  the  census  tables  were  again  searched,  with 
the  following  results : 

(a)  Both  minimum  and  maximum  sentences  allowable  ranged  very 
irregularly  from  less  than  a  year  to  life,  and  preferences  were  shown 
for  1,  2,  3,  5,  7,  10,  14,  and  20  years,  and  life,  the  stronger  preference 
above  4  years  being  the  maximum  sentence  of  10  years. 

At  just  one  point  does  the  preference  in  a  limit  depart  markedly 
from  the  preference  in  term  of  commitment :  14  years  is  preferred  over 
15  years  in  the   former,   while    15   is  preferred  over   14  in  the  latter; 


236 


MENTAL  HABIT 


which  would  tend  to  impute  an  independent  number-preference  to  the 
judges. 

(b)  Assuming  that  if  judges  often  gave  a  limiting  sentence  it  would 
probably  be  shown  in  granting  the  lower  limit  to  women,  a  crucial  case 
was  sought.  There  were  257  female  prisoners  committed  in  26  respec- 
tive states  for  grand  larceny.  Plate  XVI  shows  the  curves  of  the  mini- 
mum and  maximum  sentences  allowable,  in  the  respective  states,  and  of 


rt  iscnerj 

7* 

SO 

A 

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1     1 

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- Upper 

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Mitence 

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Time 

0  -i_^?_fe    ■/     Z     3    4     5    €     7~~g~f~   To    "    '*    '3    '"   <5 

Plate  XVI.— Female  Sentences  for  Grand  Larceny. 
Eleventh  Census,  257  cases. 

the  terms  of  commitment.  The  latter  is  shifted  above  the  minimum 
sufficiently  to  show  that  the  minimum  sentence  was  seldom  given.  At 
one  point,  on  5  years,  the  commitment  curve  conforms  to  the  maximum 
curve:  but  those  prisoners  were  sentenced  in  states  in  which  the  maxi- 
mum sentence  allowable  was  7,  10,  14,  or  15  years.    Again,  the  commit- 


INFLUENCE  OF  MENTAL  HABIT  UPON  JUDGMENT 


237 


ment  for  5  years  was  determined  by  an  independent  preference  for  a 
round  number  on  the  part  of  the  judges. 

(c)  The  tables  were  searched  for  single  commitments  for  the  re- 
spective crimes  in  the  respective  states,  and  58  cases  were  found.  Plate 
XVII  shows  pictorially  the  range  of  allowable  sentence  and  the  term  of 


c 'A    1 '    z    J 14    J '  fc 7    i t   I '   « >    1   "  n  y  n   »   ?   n  *  m  ^.r)    — 


Plate  XVII. —  Single  Commitments.     Eleventh  Census. 

The  lines  show  the  range  of  sentence  permissible  by  law ; 

the  vertical  stroke  shows  the  sentence  pronounced  by  the  judge. 

commitment,  for  each  case.  In  five  cases  the  minimum  sentence  was 
given ;  in  five  cases  the  maximum  was  given.  Only  about  a  sixth  of 
the  sentences  were  determined  by  a  limit  assigned  by  law. 

It  is  more  than  probable,  therefore,  that  the  preference  for  round 
numbers  shown  in  the  distribution  of  terms  of  commitment  has  not  been 
imposed  upon  the  judges  by  the  limits  of  sentence  assigned  by  law. 

As  to  the  round  numbers  furnishing  sufficiently  fine  gradations,  be- 
tween the  imposed  limits,  for  an  equitable  graduation  of  term  of  com- 
mitment to  gravity  of  crime,  it  may  be  admitted,  perhaps,  that  such 
might  be  the  case  for  sentences  above  25  or  30  years;  but  it  can 
scarcely  be  admitted  for  sentences  under  20  years.  It  would  seem  that 
it  must  make  a  sensible  difference  to  a  prisoner  whether  he  is  sentenced 
for  18  or  for  20  years,  and  still  more  whether  he  is  sentenced  for  5  or 
for  7  years.  That  such  distinctions  are  recognized  by  judges  is  indicated 
by  the  fact  that  they  do  make  still  finer  ones,  since,  as  the  distribution 
of   commitments   shows,   every   integral  number   of  years   between  the 


238  MENTAL  HABIT 

round  numbers  has  been  pronounced  in  one  or  more  cases  up  to  43,  and 
in  more  than  four  cases  up  to  37 ;  and  not  only  so,  but  up  to  22  years 
fractional  parts  of  a  year  have  been  added  to  each  of  the  integral  num- 
bers, in  order  to  make  the  gradations  finer,  as  the  two  samples  in  the 
following  table  illustrate: 


Number  of  Sentences 

Years 

Months 

2 

19 

4 

2 

19 

5 

6 

19 

6 

1 

19 

10 

2 

19 

11 

1 

9 

2 

8 

9 

3 

4 

9 

4 

3 

9 

5 

32 

9 

6 

5 

9 

8 

6 

9 

9 

9 

9 

10 

3 

9 

11 

Perhaps  the  evidence  in  the  distribution  of  terms  of  commitment  is 
itself  sufficient  to  indicate  that  gradations  in  round  numbers  below  20 
years  are  recognized  by  the  judges  to  be  too  coarse  to  meet  the  ends  of 
justice;  but  if  so,  the  extraordinary  preference  for  round  numbers  ex- 
hibited by  judges  must  be  in  part  if  not  largely  an  involuntary  prefer- 
ence.— the  subliminal  influence  of  a  mental  habit  upon  judgment.  This 
suggestion  gathers  force  from  the  fact  that  others  whose  sense  of  jus- 
tice has  been  less  carefully  cultivated  than  that  of  judges  recognize  in 
the  situation  something  reprehensible  to  the  bench. 

Hewes,  after  discussing  the  distribution  of  criminal  sentences,  says: 

Of  course  no  man,  even  including  the  judges  themselves  who  pronounce 
sentences,  would  undertake  to  claim  that  criminality  is  graduated  so  irregularly 
as  are  the  terms  of  sentence.  If,  then,  the  calmest,  the  best-educated  judgments 
deviate  so  far,  in  suiting  penalty  to  guilt,  what  wonder  if  ordinary  judgment  in 
less  serious  affairs  of  communities  makes  many  mistakes.6 

Concerning  criminal  sentences  in  England,  which  are  given  in  weeks 
up  to  11,  in  months  from  3  to  35,  and  in  years  from  3  on,  and  which 
exhibit  similar  number  preferences  for  2,  5,  and  9  weeks,  3,  6,  9,  12,  18, 
and  24  months,  and  5,  7,  and  10  years,  Sir  Francis  Galton,  after  study- 


6  F.  W.   Hewes :     The  influence  of  number  in  criminal   sentences.     Harper's 
Weekly,  1896,  40 :  254. 


INFLUENCE  OF   MENTAL  HABIT  UPON   JUDGMENT 


239 


ing   the   irregular    distribution   of    54,670   sentences    (43>3°°   in   weeks, 
10,540  in  months,  and  830  in  years),  said: 

It  would  have  been  expected  that  the  various  terms  of  imprisonment  awarded 
by  judges  should  fall  into  a  continuous  series. 

Such,  however,  is  not  the  case.  ...  It  is  impossible  to  believe  that  a  judicial 
system  acts  fairly,  which,  when  it  allots  only  20  sentences  to  6  years  imprison- 
ment, allots  as  many  as  240  to  5  years,  as  few  as  60  to  4  years,  and  as  many 
as  360  to  3  years.  Or  that,  while  there  are  20  sentences  to  19  months,  there  should 
be  300  to  18,  none  to  17,  30  to  16,  and  150  to  15.  .  .  .  Runs  of  figures  like  these 
testify  to  some  powerful  cause  of  disturbance  which  interferes  with  the  orderly 
distribution  of  punishment  in   conformity  with  penal  deserts. 

On  examining  the  diagram   [Plate  XVIII]   we  are  struck  with  the  apparent 


qSop 

SrnitrKe* 

1 

1 

/yuo 

1 

Svo 
0 

1 

Months      3     4      5"    6     7      3     y     /o    //     /%    /3    li    '■$'    fb   '/     '$    '?    20    2/     i>    13 

Plate  XVIII. —  Terms  of  Criminal  Sentence  in  England. 
(From  data  published  by  Galton.) 


facility  of  drawing  a  smooth  curve,  that  shall  cut  off  as  much  of  the  hill-tops  of 
the  irregular  curve  as  will  fill  their  adjacent  valleys.  .  .  .  The  smoothed  curve 
may  therefore  be  accepted  as  an  approximate  rendering  of  the  general  drift  of 
the  intentions  of  the  judges  as  a  whole,  and  shows  that  the  sentences  passed  by 
them  severally  ought  to  be  made  more  appropriate  to  the  penal  deserts  of  the 
prisoners  than  they  are  at  present.7 


7  Galton :     Terms  of  imprisonment.    Nature,  June  20,  1895,  pp.  174-6. 


240  MENTAL  HABIT 

It  is  consequently  unlikely  that  judges,  although  they  doubtless  vary 
considerably  in  this  respect,  are  conscious  of,  and  acquiesce  in,  the  large 
control  of  their  judgments  by  the  round-number  mental  habit.  But  we 
shall  not  rest  the  case  for  "unconscious"  influence  of  mental  habit  upon 
this  evidence  alone. 

If  there  is  any  sphere  in  which  such  an  influence  works  uncon- 
sciously, it  must  be  in  our  educational  institutions  where  conscientious 
teachers  give  their  students  final  grades  in  their  respective  subjects,  or 
in  science  where  the  observer  or  experimenter  endeavors  to  the  best  of 
his  ability  to  give  an  impersonal  and  accurate  judgment  in  his  report  of 
the  facts  of  nature. 

Estimates  of  Star-Magnitudes. 

The  astronomer,  for  example,  desires  a  true  report  of  the  magni- 
tudes of  the  stars,  and  would  not  welcome  the  control  of  judgment  by  a 
mental  habit.  For  centuries,  of  course,  all  of  the  visible  stars  (down  to 
the  sixth  magnitude)  have  been  known  by  name  and  their  degrees  of 
brightness  estimated  by  various  observers.  But  reports,  owing  to  the 
many  variable  conditions  of  observation,  such  as  moon-light,  proximity 
of  brighter  stars,  milky-way,  declination  of  the  star  at  time  of  observa- 
tion, atmospheric  absorption,  etc.,  and  the  observer's  characteristic  men- 
tal scale  of  magnitudes,  lacked  uniformity  to  such  a  degree  that  in  the 
latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  it  was  agreed  among  the  astrono- 
mers of  the  world  that  a  complete  re-estimation  of  all  stars,  both  vis- 
ible and  telescopic  was  necessary;  and  the  tremendous  undertaking  was 
parceled  out  to  the  various  great  observatories.  Suppose  we  turn  to  the 
preface  of  a  report  on  the  visible  stars  which  was  made  by  one  of  these 
observatories,  in  order  to  learn  from  Professor  E.  C.  Pickering  how 
the  list  of  4,260  stars,  which  is  to  demand  our  attention,  was  made  by 
selection  from  seventeen  existing  catalogues  or  star-lists,  and  what  aims 
directed  the  observations : 

An  extensive  and  systematic  inquiry,  by  photometric  methods,  into  the  com- 
parative brightness  of  the  stars,  has  long  been  regarded  among  astronomers  as 
highly  desirable.  .  .  .  The  observations  to  be  described  in  the  present  volume 
were  planned  with  a  view  of  obtaining  a  satisfactory  determination  of  the  com- 
parative brightness  of  all  stars  not  fainter  than  the  sixth  magnitude,  which  could 
conveniently  be  observed  in  this  latitude.  In  the  absence  of  a  definite  and  gener- 
ally accepted  scale  of  magnitude,  it  was  impracticable  to  include  in  the  list  of  stars 
to  be  observed  all  those  surpassing  a  certain  degree  of  brightness,  and  to  exclude 
all  others.  The  course  adopted,  therefore,  was  to  form  the  required  list  by  the 
selection  from  several  standard  catalogues  of  stars  estimated  in  any  one  of  these 
catalogues  to  be  of  the  first  six  magnitudes.     In  consequence  of  accidental  errors 


INFLUENCE  OF   MENTAL  HABIT  UPON  JUDGMENT  241 

of  estimation  in  one  or  another  of  the  catalogues  thus  consulted,  many  of  the 
stars  included  in  the  present  work  are  no  doubt  fainter  than  others  which  have 
been  excluded ;  but  if  any  stars  are  omitted  which  should  actually  be  regarded  as 
of  the  sixth  magnitude,  they  must  have  been  under-estimated  in  all  these  cata- 
logues.8 

The  Meridian  Photometer  is  described "  as  an  instrument  with  a 
horizontal  eye-piece  and  systems  of  prisms  and  lenses  such  that  the 
images  of  the  pole-star  and  of  the  star  to  be  estimated  could  be  brought 
into  the  center  of  the  field  for  direct  comparison ;  and  the  method  of 
observation,  requiring  two  persons,  provided  for  the  estimation  of  in- 
equality to  be  read  from  a  scale  with  gradations  in  tenths  of  a  degree. 
Thus  the  observer's  error  was  reduced  to  a  minimum :  he  brought  the 
two  images  close  together,  turned  a  "Nicol"  prism  until  the  observed 
star  was  judged  to  be  equal  in  brightness  to  the  pole-star;  the  recorder 
took  the  reading  from  the  scale  over  which  the  indicator  of  the  "Nicol" 
turning  mechanism  played;  the  observer  then  turned  the  corresponding 
prism  until  the  pole  star  just  disappeared,  then  regained  a  brightness 
equal  to  that  of  the  observed  star;  the  recorder  again  took  the  reading 
from  the  scale ;  the  images  were  reversed  in  position,  and  the  procedure 
was  repeated.  From  the  average  of  the  readings  the  brightness  of  the 
star  was  determined  to  a  hundredth-magnitude.  Any  error  on  the  ob- 
server's part  would  have  to  be  limited  to  the  mental  process  of  judging 
the  equality  of  two  visible  images,  after  the  errors  peculiar  to  "The 
Method  of  Minimal  Changes  in  its  Application  to  Stimulus  Compari- 
son," 10  have  been  eliminated,  and  may  be  considered  entirely  negligible. 

The  magnitudes  in  this  catalogue,  consequently,  approach  scientific 
accuracy,  and  their  distribution  may  be  readily  accepted  as  a  true  dis- 
tribution of  the  real  magnitudes  of  the  visible  stars.11  They  are  listed, 
however,  beside  the  magnitudes  published  in  several  other  catalogues, 
chief  among  which  is  Argelander's  Durchmusterung,  published  from  the 
great  observatory  at  Bonn  during  1852-1861. 

This  catalogue  includes  all  the  stars  down  to  the  10th  magnitude, 
from  the  pole-star  to  2°  beyond  the  equator.  The  stars  common  to  the 
two  lists,  therefore,  would  be  all  the  visible  stars  (or  stars  listed  in  one 


8  Observations  with  the  Meridian  Photometer  during  the  years  1879-1882. 
Annals  of  the  Astronomical  Observatory  of  Harvard  College,  Cambridge,  1884, 
14:  Preface. 

9  Op.  cit.,  pp.  1-9. 

10  I'idc,  Kiilpe:    Outlines  of  Psychology.     London,  1901,  pp.  56-7. 

11  For  the  elaborate  provisions  made  for  eliminating  the  errors  due  to  vary- 
ing objective  conditions  of  observation  the  reader  is  referred  to  the  Annals. 


242  MENTAL  HABIT 

or  more  of  the  17  catalogues  as  the  6th  magnitude  or  brighter)  in  the 
northern  heavens  and  down  to  2°  beyond  the  equator.  These  stars,  2884 
in  number,  furnished  the  basis  of  our  calculations.  They  were  tabu- 
lated, by  magnitude,  according  to  both  estimates ;  the  Photometric  esti- 
mates being  taken  to  the  nearest  tenth-magnitude  (as  5-54=5.5,  and 
5.56=5.6;   but  5.55  =  5.6,  and  5.65  =57*)- 

A  comparison  of  the  distributions  of  the  Photometric  and  the 
Durchmusterung  magnitudes  (for  the  2884  stars  common  to  both  lists), 
shown  in  Plate  XIX,12  is  interesting  and  instructive.  The  latter  curve 
shows  the  characteristics  which  we  have  already  observed  in  the  distribu- 
tions of  ages  and  of  prison-sentences;  a  marked  preference  is  shown  for 
the  round  numbers. 

This  fact  had  already  been  noticed  by  Professor  C.  S.  Peirce,  who 
offered  a  very  interesting  explanation : 

The  Durchmusterung  is  one  of  the  best  collections  of  magnitudes  which  we 
have ;  and  here  are  some  of  the  numbers  of  stars  of  different  magnitudes  accord- 
ing to  that  catalogue : 


Magnitude 

Number 

Magnitude 

Number 

^6.0 

618 

6.6 

159 

6.1 

106 

6.7 

457 

6.2 

293 

6.8 

901 

6.3 

275 

6.9 

137 

6.4 
6.5 

101 

7.0 

2,141 

1,239 

total 

It  is  impossible  to  believe  that  the  stars  are  really  distributed  in  the  heavens 
in  this  singular  way ;  so  that  there  are  really  1239  stars  of  the  6.5  magnitude  and 
only  159  of  the  6.6.  My  father  has  already  introduced  into  another  branch  of  as- 
tronomy the  principle  that  the  magnitudes  of  the  different  parts  into  which  an  ob- 
server divides  a  scale  in  estimating  tenths  are  respectively  proportional  to  the 
numbers  of  cases  in  which  the  figures  denoting  them  are  found  to  occur.  Thus 
if  we  find  in  any  observations  of  transits  by  eye  and  ear,  twice  as  many  transits 
the  time  of  which  ends  with  0.5  sec.  as  of  those  which  end  with  0.4  sec,  we  as- 
sume that  in  that  observer's  mental  subdivision  of  the  second  the  fifth  part  was 
twice  as  long  an  interval  as  the  fourth.  We  may  extend  the  same  idea  to  the 
comparison  of  scales  of  star-magnitudes.  If  one  observer  says  there  are  9  first 
magnitude  stars  in  the  northern  heavens  and  another  finds  only  8,  clearly  the  lat- 
ter consigns  some  star  to  the  2d  magnitude   which   the  other  considers  to  be  of 


*  Which  differs  from  the  conversion  from  hundredths  to  tenths  in  the  cata- 
logue, where  a  magnitude  with  a  5  in  the  hundredth's  place  was  changed  to  the 
nearest  even  tenth :  5.55  =  5.6 ;  but  5.65  =  5.6.  For  this  reason,  were  the  con- 
verted magnitudes  in  the  catalogue  tabulated,  an  artificial  excess  upon  the  even 
tenth  magnitudes  would  disturb  the  distribution. 

12  Infra,  p.  243.    The  magnitudes  are  given  in  tenths. 


INFLUENCE  OF  MENTAL  HABIT  UPON   JUDGMENT 


243 


the  ist,  and  therefore  he  makes  the  limit  between  the  first  and  second  magnitudes 
to  be  brighter  than  the  other  makes  it.  Suppose  that  neither  of  the  two  observers 
made  any  errors  in  his  estimations  and  that  their  discrepancies  arose  solely  from 
the  differences  of  their  scales  of  magnitudes.  Then  if  they  observed  the  same 
stars,  whichever  had  fewer  stars  brighter  than  the  4th  magnitude,  for  example, 
would  have  made  the  limit  between  his  third  and  fourth  magnitudes  the  brighter.13 

Professor  Peirce  had  his  aid,  Mr.  Farquhar,  re-tabulate  all  of  the 
Durchmusterung  estimates  down  to  the  6.1  magnitude,  and  by  adding 
K.  von  Littrow's  tabulation  down  to  the  9.5  magnitude  he  constructed  a 
table  from  which  he  calculated  an  "equitable  distribution"  of  the  3i4,925 
stars  in  the  list,  such  as  one  might  expect  to  show  the  actual  distribu- 
tion of  the  stars  in  the  heavens,14  and  calculated  the  theoretical  magni- 


Plate  XIX.—  Magnitudes  of  the  Stars  reported  by  various  observers  to  be  as 

bright  as,  or  brighter  than,  the  6th  magnitude. 

The   solid    line   gives   the   estimates    in   Argelander's    Durchmusterung;     the 

smooth   curve   gives   the   theoretical   distribution    (vide,   footnote    14)  ; 

the  small  circles   give  the  Harvard  photometric  determinations. 

— Students'  Grades,  from  applications  for  entrance  into  Stanford 
University.       3186  Cases. 


18  Photometric  Researches,  1872-75.  Annals  of  the  Astronomical  Observa- 
tory of  Harvard  College,  1878,  9:8-9. 

14  The  smooth  curve  in  Plate  XIX  is  a  limiting  curve  estimated  from  this 
table,  published  in  the  Annals  on  p.  26.  The  true  magnitudes  should  be  found 
either  in  the  curve  or  just  above  it,  if  the  stars  are  "equitably  distributed"  in  the 
heavens. 


244  MENTAL  HABIT 

tudes,  thus  reducing  the  Durchmusterung  magnitudes  to  the  scale  of 
equitable  distribution.  From  the  curves  in  Plate  XIX  one  may  see  how 
much  the  Durchmusterung  distribution  departs  from  the  theoretical, 
when  the  magnitudes  down  to  the  6th  are  considered ;  and  also  how  the 
theoretical  approximated  fairly  closely  the  real  distribution  as  later  de- 
termined by  Photometric  observations.15 

But  were  we  to  take  at  their  face  value  the  regular  departures  of 
the  Durchmusterung  curve  from  the  Photometric,  we  should  be  doing 
injustice  to  the  Bonn  observatory  and  we  should  also  lose  an  oppor- 
tunity to  consider  some  facts  which  will  be  of  assistance  in  a  final  analy- 
sis and  explanation  of  the  round-number  mental  habit. 

A  letter  1B  from  Professor  Schonfeld,  at  Bonn,  written  in  explana- 
tion of  the  manner  in  which  the  Durchmusterung  estimates  were  made, 
informs  us  that  during  one  period  of  observation  no  especial  effort  was 
made  to  estimate  magnitudes  in  smaller  gradations  than  half-magni- 
tudes ;  during  another,  only  descriptive  words  were  added  to  the  half- 
magnitude  estimates ;  and  only  finally  did  the  observers  endeavor  to  esti- 
mate to  the  tenth  of  a  magnitude.  All  estimates  were  then  converted 
into  magnitudes  expressed  to  a  tenth.  The  first  method  contributed 
about  20%  of  the  estimates ;  the  second  about  50%  ;  and  the  last  about 
30%. 

This  would  account  for  much  of  the  deviation  of  the  Durchmus- 
terung curve,  but  not  necessarily  for  the  greater  part  of  it.  If  we  as- 
sume that  all  three  methods,  in  their  stated  proportions,  contributed  to 
the  distribution  of  the  magnitudes  from  6.0  to  7.0  quoted  above  from 
Professor  Peirce,  and  deduct  proportionally  from  the  numbers  of  esti- 
mates of  the  magnitudes  6.0,  6.5,  and  7.0,  a  number  of  cases  (1820) 
equivalent  to  20%  of  the  total  (which  is  6427)  plus  a  sixth  of  50%  of 
the  total,  we  shall  have  made  a  rigorous  correction  for  the  number  of 


15  It  would  seem  that,  after  all,  not  all  of  the  stars  down  to  the  6th  magni- 
tude were  included  in  the  Harvard  list,  since  its  distribution  breaks  from  the 
theoretical  before  the  6th  magnitude  is  reached :  Roughly  one  might  estimate  that 
at  least  15  stars  of  the  5.8,  45  stars  of  the  5.9,  and  100  stars  of  the  6.0  magnitudes 
were  omitted.  In  this  case,  however,  as  was  observed  by  Professor  Pickering, 
those  stars  would  necessarily  have  been  omitted  in  each  of  17  respective  cata- 
logues, from  which  the  list  was  compiled.  At  any  rate,  since  there  must  be  more 
stars  of  the  6.0  magnitude  than  of  the  5.9,  or  of  the  5.8,  the  peak  of  the  distribu- 
tion curve  should  fall  on  the  6.0  abscissa,  if  all  stars  as  bright  as  the  6th  magni- 
tude are  included. 

18  Published  in  the  Annals,  1878,  9:27. 


INFLUENCE  OF  MENTAL  HABIT  UPON  JUDGMENT 


245 


estimations  not  intentionally  made  to  the  tenth  of  a  magnitude.     This 
gives  the  corrected  distribution : 


6.0 

335 

6.6 

159 

6.1 

106 

6.7 

457 

6.2 

293 

6.8 

901 

6-3 

275 

6.9 

137 

6.4 

IOI 

7.0 

1,141 

6.5 

873 

Plate  XX  gives  the  curve  of  the  distribution,  in  relation  to  the  esti- 
mated limiting  curve  of  "equitable  distribution"  for  the  original  number 


1200 
St,aj?s 


900 


600 


300 


/  / 

V 


Magnitude  6.0  .1       .2       .3       .4       .5       .6       .7       .8      .9  7.0 

Plate  XX. —  Corrected  Distribution  of  the  Durchmusterung  estimates 
of  stars  of  6.0  to  7.0  magnitudes. 

of  cases;  the  ordinate  on  6.8  indicates  that  the  correction  has  probably 
been  too  great,  yet  the  round-number  estimates  are  still  in  considerable 
excess  over  the  others,  tending  to  show  that  the  influence  upon  the  as- 
tronomer's judgment  was  unconscious,  when  he  endeavored  to  assign 
the  star-brightnesses  to  the  tenth  of  a  magnitude. 

This  evidence  is  supported  by  the  direct  testimony  of  Professor 
Schonfeld  in  his  letter  to  which  reference  has  already  been  made.  He 
said  that  even  from  the  time  observations  were  begun  to  be  made  to  the 
tenth  of  a  magnitude  until  the  end  of  the  work  "the  decimals  1,  4,  6, 


246 


MENTAL  HABIT 


and  9,  but  especially  i  and  6,  were  much  less  often  estimated  than  the 
others."  " 

One  of  the  principal  reasons  that  Professor  Schonfeld,  in  the  same 
letter,  offered  for  the  earlier  methods  of  observation  is  enlightening,  and 
will  no  doubt  be  found  to  underlie  much  of  the  evidence  for  the  round- 
number  habit.  He  said:  "We  could  not  discriminate  between  the  mag- 
nitudes 7.4,  7.5,  and  7.6,  for  example,  with  the  same  degree  of  certainty 
as  between  7.3  and  7.4,  or  7.6  and  y.y."  There  is  an  inter-class  field 
about  the  division-marks  (here,  half-magnitudes)  in  the  mental  scale, 
within  which  discrimination  is  felt  to  be  difficult ;  but  differences  no 
greater,  between  values  in  adjoining  inter-classes,  are  felt  to  be  readily 
appreciated.  In  accordance  with  this  feeling  one  might  expect  an  ex- 
cess of  estimates  upon  the  mid-points  of  the  inter-class  fields,  i.  e.,  upon 
the  division  marks.  This  is  probably  a  normal  situation  when  estimates 
are  made  in  accordance  with  a  mental  scale.  Whether  the  feeling  is 
justified  in  objective  fact,  or  is  illusory,  is  another  matter,  which  depends 
upon  the  stability  of  the  mental  scale  and  upon  distinguishable  dif- 
ferences. 

The  inferences  drawn  from  our  data  in  the  above  paragraphs  have 
been  verified  in  data  published  by  E.  Grossmann,  of  Kiel.17"     He  calcu- 


late XXa  —  Estimates  of  Star-Magnitudes. 
Curve  A.   Seeliger   typical   distribution.      (From  Grossmann.) 

B.  Observer   J. 

C.  Early  observations   by   H. 

D.  Later  observations  by  H. 

In  order  to  show  the  relation  between  0  and  9  as  well  as  between  0  and  /, 
the  0  is  repeated  after  the  9.  The  most  probable  distribution  is  shown  in  the 
lightly-drawn  ordinate. 

17  "Doch  ist  dabei  zu  bemerken,  dass  auch  dann,  und  bis  zum  Schluss  der 
Arbeit,  die  Zehntel  1,  4,  6,  und  9,  besonders  aber  1  und  6,  viel  seltener  geschatzt 
wurden,  als  die  iibrigen."     hoc.  cit. 

""Grossmann:    Ueber   Schatzungen  nach   Augenmass.     Astronomische  Nach- 
richten,  Kiel,  1906,  170:  159-160. 


INFLUENCE  OF  MENTAL  HABIT  UPON  JUDGMENT  247 

lated  from  the  Seeliger  typical  distribution  of  the  fixed  stars  the  number 
of  stars  there  should  be  for  each  tenth  magnitude  down  to  p.o.  He  then 
distributed  these  hypothetical  stars  of  all  magnitudes  over  the  decimal 
scale  (.0-.9),  getting  the  values  plotted  in  Curve  A,  Plate  XXo.  The 
deviations  of  the  observations  of  two  observers  (/.  and  H.)  from  this 
typical  distribution  were  found.  If  the  typical  distribution  is  repre- 
sented by  the  light  horizontal  ordinate  (at  ICO  per  iooo),  the  deviations 
resulting  from  mental  habit  in  the  observations  of  /.  are  shown  in  Curve 
B  ;  and  those  of  H.  in  C  and  D.  The  "U"  form  of  the  curves  indicates 
a  strong  preference  for  the  o  tenth ;  and  in  Curves  B  and  C  the  5  tenth 
is  preferred.  The  similarity  of  Curves  C  and  D  indicates  the  permanent 
nature  of  an  observer's  mental  habit ;  the  observations  in  the  two  sets 
were  made  five  years  apart. 

Students'  Grades. 

Another  class  of  judgments,  made  upon  the  basis  of  a  mental  scale, 
which  might  be  expected  to  be  fairly  free  from  the  conscious  influence 
of  mental  habit,  is  the  final  grades  which  teachers  assign  in  the  form  of 
per  cent  to  students  in  their  respective  subjects,  especially  when  these 
grades  are  designed  to  reveal  accurately  the  scholarship  of  the  student 
and  are  expected  to  be  used  in  his  application  for  entrance  into  the  uni- 
versity. Through  the  courtesy  of  the  Registrar's  Office  18  we  were  en- 
abled to  tabulate  3186  percentile  grades  from  the  applications  of  213 
students.  The  applications  came  from  all  over  the  country,  and  the 
grading  was  done  by  perhaps  not  less  than  1000  different  teachers.  The 
distribution  curve  is  shown  in  Plate  XIX,19  adjacent  to  the  distributions 
of  the  star-magnitudes,  with  which  it  compares  most  favorably  as  evi- 
dence for  the  round-number  habit. 

It  may  be  argued,  however,  that  with  teachers  as  with  the  judges, 
many  of  them  consider  the  five-unit  gradations  sufficiently  fine.  But 
like  the  judges  they  do  use  the  finer  gradations,  as  the  distribution 
shows,  and  as  a  class  they  are  too  conscientious  to  neglect  a  means  of 
refining  justice  beyond  a  point  which  would  challenge  criticism  from 
both  pupils  and  parents.  Indeed,  fractional  per  cents  are  not  uncom- 
mon in  practice.  I  doubt  if  any  teacher  accustomed  to  grading  by  the 
percentile  scale,  who  has  not  made  a  statistical  study  of  the  process,  will 
be  ready  to  claim  that  the  five-per-cent  divisions  are  sufficiently  close 


18  For  which  acknowledgment  is  due  particularly  to  Assistant  Registrar  John 
Ezra  McDowell. 

19  Supra,  p.  243. 


248  MENTAL  HABIT 

for  grading.20  And  yet  no  one  will  defend  our  distribution  curve,  as 
against  a  smooth  curve,  as  representative  of  the  real  distribution  of 
merit.  The  evidence  seems  fairly  good  for  unconscious  influence  of 
mental  habit  upon  judgment. 

Of  course,  if  the  scale  were  linear  and  visible,  like  a  meter-stick, 
and  if  the  observed  merit  of  the  student  were  definite,  like  the  edge  of 
a  chalk-box,  estimates  to  the  nearest  centimeter  would  distribute  smooth- 
ly, free  from  round-number  preferences.  It  is  only  because  the  degrees 
of  observed  merit  are  sufficiently  indefinite  to  migrate  upon  the  mental 
scale  that  greater  frequency  upon  round  numbers  is  possible.  Indeed, 
there  is  a  fair  probability  that  the  least  discriminable  gradations  upon  the 
mental  percentile  scale  lie  about  8%  apart.21 

But  if  the  length  of  a  chalk-box  were  to  be  estimated  by  a  single 
observer  a  great  number  of  times,  or  by  a  large  number  of  observers, 
to  tenths  of  a  millimeter,  a  distribution  of  the  estimates  might  reveal 
the  influence  of  the  round-number  habit.  Here  the  scale  is  objective  and 
the  estimate  is  limited  to  the  range  between  calibrations.     Then,  if  the 


20  Only  about  ten  applications  were  discarded  on  account  of  uniformly  round- 
number  grading. 

21  To  determine  the  minimal  distinguishable  steps  on  the  mental  percentile 
scale,  Professor  Starch  had  "two  papers  in  English  work  graded  by  142  teachers 
of  English  and  one  paper  in  geometry  graded  by  118  teachers  of  geometry.  The 
grades  of  one  English  paper  ranged  from  64  to  98  with  a  probable  error  of  40. 
The  grades  of  the  other  ranged  from  50  to  98  with  a  probable  error  of  4.8.  The 
grades  of  the  geometry  paper  ranged  from  28  to  92  with  a  probable  error  of  7.5. 
To  discover  whether  this  wide  variation  might  be  due  to  the  difference  in  standard 
among  the  schools,  ten  freshman  English  papers  were  graded  by  ten  instructors 
of  freshman  English  in  the  same  institution.  The  mean  variation  of  all  these 
grades  was  5.3.  In  order  to  eliminate  the  variation  due  to  differences  in  standard 
among  individual  instructors,  all  the  marks  were  weighted  by  the  amount  that 
each  individual  differed  from  the  general  average.  The  mean  variation  of  these 
weighted  grades  was  4.2. 

"In  order  to  compare  the  accuracy  of  measurement  by  means  of  a  mental 
scale  in  an  entirely  different  field,  five  rods  ranging  from  10  to  23  inches  were 
judged  in  terms  of  inches  by  eleven  experienced  carpenters.  The  mean  varia- 
tion ...  is  identical  with  the  variation  of  the  grades,  which  indicates  that  the 
deviation  of  the  marks  is  not  due  to  the  nature  of  the  examinaton  paper  but  it 
implies  that  measurements  by  means  of  a  mental  scale  simply  cannot  be  made 
any  more  accurately. 

"The  steps  on  a  scale  should  be  at  least  twice  the  size  of  the  .  .  .  probable 
error  of  the  measurements  in  order  to  be  distinguishable  steps,"— approximately 
8  points.  Between  the  grades  60  and  100,  the  minimal  number  of  distinguishable 
steps  is  five.  (Reliability  and  Distribution  of  Grades.  Psychological  Bulletin, 
1913,   10:74). 


INFLUENCE  OF  MENTAL  HABIT  UPON  JUDGMENT  249 

observers  were  men  of  science  whose  observations  were  expected  to  be 
permanently  recorded,  and  used  in  the  advancement  of  science,  any  reg- 
ular deviations  from  a  smooth  curve  would  be  regarded  as  decisive  evi- 
dence for  the  unconscious  influence  of  mental  habit  upon  judgment. 

Temperature  on  Pikes  Peak. 

Over  forty  years  ago  meteorological  observations  on  Pikes  Peak 
(the  highest  regular  station  then  in  the  world),  were  made  under  the 
direction  of  the  Chief  Signal  Service  Officer  of  the  United  States  Army, 
General  A.  W.  Greely.  The  records  for  hourly  observations  of  baro- 
metric pressure  and  of  temperature,  for  the  months  of  August  and  Sep- 
tember, 1874,  are  available  22  for  our  inspection.  Both  sets  of  observa- 
tions were  tabulated  according  to  the  final  digit  (hundredths  of  an  inch 
in  the  barometric  readings;  tenths  of  a  degree  in  the  readings  of  a 
Fahrenheit  thermometer).  The  barometric  records  were  found  to  be 
subject  to  great  and  apparently  regular  variation  in  the  distribution  over 
the  digits  from  i  to  o ;  but  since  they  had  evidently  been  corrected  for 
both  temperature  and  altitude,  they  are  unserviceable  for  determining 
what  the  preferred  digits  were.  The  distribution  of  975  thermometer- 
readings  is  shown  in  curve  A,  in  Plate  XXI.23  The  "U"  form  of  the  curve 
indicates  the  preference  for  the  0  deviation  from  the  calibration-mark  on 
the  scale,  the  increasing  insecurity  of  the  estimate  as  the  objective  tem- 
perature departed  from  a  calibration,  and  in  this  field  of  insecurity  a 
preference  for  5. 

Temperature   in   Mauritius,    in   the   Greenwich    Observatory,    in 
Hertfordshire,  and  in  Dundee. 

A  marked  preference  for  the  even  and  the  half  degree  in  thermo- 
metric  readings  returned  from  newly  established  second-order  meteor- 
ological stations  in  Mauritius  (a  British  island  in  the  Indian  Ocean) 
suggested  to  Albert  Walter  (of  the  Royal  Alfred  Observatory)  the  ad- 
visability of  examining  the  distribution  curve  of  the  "tenths  of  estima- 
tion" for  the  purpose  of  testing  the  reliability  of  the  observations." 
From  two  stations  896  observations  were  received.     Their  distribution 


22  Annals    of    the    Astronomical    Observatory    of    Harvard    College,    18& 
22 :  415  ff. 

23  Infra,  p.  251. 
24  Albert    Walter :  On    errors    of    estimation    in    thermometric    observations. 
Quarterly  Journal  of  the  Royal  Meteorological  Society,  1909,  35 :  249-257. 


250  MENTAL  HABIT 

over  the  tenth  degrees  is  shown  in  Plate  XXI,  Curve  B.  But  to  esti- 
mate their  unreliability  he  needed  a  standard  from  experienced  and  com- 
petent observers.  This  he  obtained  from  4673  observations  made  in  the 
Greenwich  Observatory,  during  the  years  1903-04,  from  the  thermom- 
eters exposed  in  the  Stevenson  screen.  The  distribution  of  these  expert 
observations  is  shown  in  the  same  Plate,  Curve  C.  The  deviations  (from 
100  per  1000)  in  the  frequency  of  the  various  tenths  in  this  curve  started 
the  author  on  a  bit  of  calculation.  Applying  Pearson's  formula  of 
Closeness  of  Fit,25  he  found  A  =14.37,  F  =  log  62.45705-100;  which 
indicated  that  the  probability  that  the  deviations  were  caused  by  chance 
is  so  slight  that  in  its  expression  in  decimal  form  the  first  significant 
digit  is  separated  from  the  decimal  point  by  37  zeros. 

John  Hopkinson,  who  heard  the  paper  incorporating  these  results 
read,  at  one  of  the  Society's  meetings,  went  home  to  Hertfordshire  and 
subjected  his  own  observations  to  a  statistical  inquiry  which  yielded 
some  interesting  results.26  His  distribution  of  2000  observations  (for 
500  days)  made  near  the  commencement  of  his  observations  is  shown  in 
Curve  E;  and  of  an  equal  number  of  observations  (for  a  like  period) 
made  about  20  years  later  is  shown  in  Curve  F.  Then  to  determine 
whether  the  deviations  were  caused  by  reading  the  dry-  and  wet-bulb 
thermometers  (vertical),  or  the  maximum  and  minimum  thermometers 
(horizontal),  the  observations  were  segregated  and  separately  distrib- 
uted as  shown  in  Curves  G  and  H  respectively. 

G.  Hellmann  "  has  recently  published  the  distribution  of  the  esti- 
mations in  tenths  in  7304  readings  of  the  thermometer  calibrated  in  sin- 
gle degrees,  made  at  Dundee  during  the  years  1901-10,  which  is  shown 
in  Curve  D. 

It  is  interesting  to  learn  that  although  unskilled  observers  make 
greater  systematic  errors  in  thermometric  readings  than  skilled  observers 
do,  the  most  expert  observers  make  them,  and  make  them  in  sufficient 
size  to  introduce  serious  error  in  the  calculation  of  humidity  from  the 
readings  of  the  dry-  and  wet-bulb  thermometers.  It  is  also  interesting 
to  note  that  the  characteristics  in  the  mental  habit  of  an  individual  ob- 
server may  stick  to  him  during  20  years  of  experience,  and  apply  to 
both  vertical  and  horizontal  scales.     (The  decrease  of  error  on  the  hori- 


25  Vide,  supra,  p.  no. 

26  Op.  cit.,  p.  275. 

27  Hellmann :  Psychologisch  bedingte  Fehler  bei  meteorologischen  Beobacht- 
tingen.  Sitzungsberichte  der  Koniglich  Preussischen  Akademie  der  Wissenschaf- 
ten,  1913,  Erster  Halbband,  p.  286. 


01834667600         01S8466T6B0 


Plate    XXL—  Thermometric    Observations.      Frequency   distributions    of   the 

tenth  degrees. 
Curve  A.     On  Pikes  Peak.    975  cases.     (Greely.) 

B.  In  Mauritius.     896  cases.     (From  Walter.) 

C.  In  the  Greenwich  Observatory.    4673  cases.     (From  Walter.) 

D.  In  Dundee.     7304  cases.     (From  Hellmann.) 

E.  In  Hertfordshire,  earlier  observations.    2000  cases.     (From  Hopkinson.) 

F.  In  Hertfordshire,  later  observations.     2000  cases.      (From  Hopkinson.) 

G.  In  Hertfordshire,  vertical  scale.     2000  cases.     (From  Hopkinson.) 
H.     In  Hertfordshire,  horizontal  scale.     2000  cases.     (From  Hopkinson.) 


252  MENTAL  HABIT 

zontal  scale  may  be  due  to  wider  calibrations,  or  to  the  psychological  ad- 
vantage of  a  horizontal  scale.) 

Cloudiness  at  Bremen. 

Albert  v.  Obermayer  28  has  taken  occasion  to  point  out  grave  errors 
in  the  meteorological  observations  of  cloudiness.  He  observes  that, 
when  cloudiness  is  estimated  on  a  scale  from  o  to  10,  it  is  unlikely  that 
a  wide  deviation  of  the  frequency  on  any  given  ioth,  from  the  average, 
in  one  station's  reports  for  a  year,  is  a  correct  report,  when  the  same 
deviation  is  not  reported  from  neighboring  stations ;  or  that  such  a  devia- 
tion in  one  station's  reports  for  a  period  of  years  is  correct.  He  gives 
the  distribution  of  2190  observations  from  Bremen  for  the  years  1900 
and  1901  ;  290  observations  were  0,  and  754  were  10.  Excluding  the 
latter  because  of  its  disproportionate  frequency,  we  have  remaining  1436 
observations  which  distribute  over  the  respective  tenths  as  is  shown  in 
Plate  XXII,  Curve  A.     It  forms  a  remarkably  smooth  "U"  curve. 

Rain-Fall  in  New  England. 

Curve  B,  in  the  same  Plate  shows  like  characteristics  in  the  distri- 
bution of  1928  reports  of  Daily  Precipitation  from  53  stations,  chiefly 
in  New  England,  during  the  half-year  January-June,  1888.29  The  esti- 
mates were  made  in  hundredths  of  an  inch,  and  only  the  records  above 
(but  not  including)  .10  were  tabulated. 

Estimates  of  Time  from  Kymograph  Time-Records. 
Curves  C  and  D  show  the  distributions  of  the  estimates  of  time- 
intervals  to  tenths  of  a  vibration  in  a  kymograph  time-record,30  made 
by  a  statistical  assistant  and  the  writer,  respectively.  In  the  former  dis- 
tribution there  are  5034  cases;  in  the  latter,  1412.  The  observers  were 
both  chagrined  upon  learning  the  extent  to  which  their  judgments  had 


28  Obermayer :  Die  Haufigkeitszahlen  der  Berwolkung.  Sitzungsbcrichte  der 
Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftlichen  Klasse  der  Kaiserlichen  Akademie  der  Wis- 
senschaften,  1908,  Bd.  117,  Abteilung  Ho,  pp.  217-229. 

29  Observations  of  the  New  England  Meteorological  Society  in  the  year  1888, 
Annals  of  the  Astronomical  Observatory  of  Harvard  College,  1889,  21 :  76  ff. 

30  The  electric  time-marker  was  actuated  at  the  rate  of  31.75  times  a  second, 
and  the  individual  vibrations  were  separated  on  the  kymograph  paper  by  a  dis- 
tance ranging  from  1.25  to  1.67  mm.  Estimates  were  made  to  tenths  of  this  mag- 
nitude. 


01234667890         012S4B«789C 


0    1 

2   3 

4    6    6 

7 

e 

9   0 

B60 

Curvw  0 

500 

260, 

BOO 

150 

100 

/S. 

60 

0 

0    1 

B 

8 

4    6    6 

7 

e 

9   0 

£10 

Curve  H 

180. 

L60 

120 

90 

60. 

30 

4    6    6 

7 

8 

9   0 

Plate  XXII.—  Distributions  of  the  Final  Digit  in  judgments  of  various  kinds 

over  the  number  series,  to  illustrate  number-preference 

or  the  "personal  scale." 

The  ordinates  in  curves  A-D  give  absolute  values;    in  curves  E-H,  relative  values 

(per  M).    The  lightly-drawn  ordinate  represents  the  most 

probable  distribution  or  the  mean. 

Curve  A.     Cloudiness  at  Bremen.     1436  cases.     (From  Obermayer.) 

B.  Rain-fall  in  New  England.     1928  cases.     (New  Eng.  Meteor.  S.) 

C.  Kymograph  time-records.     Obs.  Dp.     5034  cases.     (Stanford.) 

D.  Kymograph  time-records.    Obs.  Cr.     1412  cases.     (Stanford.) 

E.  Ages  of  men  from  30-39  years.     5,498,871  cases*     (12th  U.  S. 

F.  Criminal  sentences  from  10-40  years.t     5018  cases,     (nth  U.  S 

G.  Star-magnitudes  6.0  to  6.9  from  Plate  XIX.     2619  cases. 
H.     Students'  grades  70-99  from  Plate  XIX.    3154  cases. 


Census.) 
Census.) 


*  This  curve  is  tilted  back  to  horizontal  by  a  reduction  equivalent  to  the  death 
rate;   the  number  of  cases  is  consequently  also  reduced. 

t  The  plotted  0  value  is  y2  instead  of  H  the  aggregate  of  sentences  for  10,  20, 
30,  and  40  years, — a  reduction  which  seems  warrantable. 


254 


MENTAL  HABIT 


been  influenced  by  the  round-number  habit.  Plate  XXIII  shows  the  dis- 
tributions of  these  regular  deviations  over  the  various  magnitudes  of 
time-intervals  from  2.0  to  6.3.     From  curve  A  it  may  be  noted  that  the 


ucs 

CUTTV    A 

at 

Plate  XXIII. —  Kymograph  Time-Records.     Curves  of  the  frequency  of  estimates 

2.0  to  6.3  units. 
Curve  A.     Observer  Dp.     (Stanford.) 
B.  "  Cr.      (         "         ) 

assistant  has  a  negative  deviation  on  the  J*s,  showing  an  individual 
characteristic,  of  which  he  was  equally  unconscious. 

Curves  E,  F ,  G,  and  H,  Plate  XXII,  show  in  the  same  form  the  cor- 
responding characteristics  in  the  census  age  returns,  the  criminal  sen- 
tences, the  estimation  of  star-magnitudes,  and  the  percentile  grades  of 
students. 

It  is  seen  that  whether  the  estimates  are  upon  such  values  as  ages, 
terms  of  sentence,  students'  grades,  star-magnitudes,  and  cloudiness,  or 
upon  decimal  values  of  a  thermometer-scale,  and  spatial  divisions  on  a 
kymograph-record,  the  frequency  distributions  present  a  common  char- 
acteristic— shown  by  a  "U"-form  curve.  In  the  scientific  field  this  sys- 
tematic error  in  estimates  is  unwelcome,  which  is  sufficient  evidence  that 
the  influence  of  mental  habit  upon  judgment  is  here  unconscious, 
subliminal. 


INFLUENCE  OF  MENTAL  HABIT  UPON   JUDGMENT  255 

How  early  this  error  in  the  estimation  of  the  former  class  of  values 
was  noticed  the  writer  does  not  know.  It  has  probably  been  long  known 
by  census  statisticians.  But  a  signal  case  was  pointed  out  in  1886  by  J. 
Beloch,31  who  tabulated  the  ages  of  deceased  persons  from  the  Corpus 
Inscriptionum  Latinarum.  The  distribution  of  1809  cases  over  the  unit's 
digit  is  shown  in  Table  XXIV,  Curve  D.  With  respect  to  the  latter  class 
of  values  it  was  without  doubt  first  noticed  in  the  field  of  astronomy 
when  the  eye-and-ear  method  was  employed  for  observing  the  time  of  the 
transit  of  a  star.  In  1858  Dr.  Julius  Hartmann  32  pointed  out  individual 
variations  in  the  estimation  of  tenths  of  a  second,  which  he  attributed  to 
individual  habits  in  the  manner  of  making  the  estimate,  and  observed 
that  practice  only  serves  to  fix  the  individual  habit  responsible  for  the 
error  more  firmly  upon  the  observer.  He  constructed  an  elaborate  piece 
of  apparatus  designed  to  bring  these  habits  to  light  and  to  provide  prac- 
tice for  their  correction.  Professor  Benjamin  Peirce,33  on  April  12, 
1859,  read  a  paper  before  the  American  Academy  in  which  he  said  that 
observations  are  not  evenly  distributed  over  the  tenths  of  a  second,  and 
that  consequently  the  mental  time-scale  does  not  correspond  to  the  ob- 
jective time-scale: 

The  time-scale  of  each  observer  was  inferred  from  the  relative  number  of 
times  which  each  tenth  of  a  second  occurred  in  his  observations.  It  was  shown 
that  the  habits  of  the  observer  were  invariable  in  this  respect,  and  were  not  sub- 
ject to  change  with  time  or  circumstance. 

Curiously  enough  these  specific  references  to  an  important  error  seem 
to  have  passed  without  notice  until  the  matter  was  again  brought  to  at- 
tention about  thirty  years  later  by  several  astronomers  whose  findings 
are  worth  our  notice. 

Estimations  of  Star-Transits. 

By  the  eye-and-ear  method  of  observation  the  observer  watches  the 
moving  image  of  the  star  as  it  takes  its  course  across  the  field  in  his 
telescope,  locates  its  two  positions  occupied  synchronously  with  the  two 
successive  strokes  of  the  clock  between  which  it  traverses  the  spider's 


31  Beloch  :     Die  Bevolkerung  der  Greichisch-Romanischen  Welt.      Leipzig,  1886, 

S.  47- 

32  Hartmann :     Einige   Beobachtungen   und   Bemerkungen   iiber   Personaldiffer- 
enz.     Grundert's  Archiv  der  Mathematik  and  Physik,  Greifswald,  1858,  31 :  1-26. 

33  Peirce :    Abstract  of  a  memoir  on  the  personal  peculiarities  of  astronomical 
observers.    Proceedings  American  Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences,  i860,  4:  192. 


256  MENTAL  HABIT 

web  (the  meridian),  and  estimates  the  ratio  of  the  distance  between  the 
web  and  the  first  position  in  terms  of  tenths  of  the  distance  between  the 
two  positions.  Since  the  latter  distance  represents  a  second  of  time,  the 
estimate  gives  in  a  fraction  of  a  second  beyond  the  time  of  the  clock  at 
the  first  of  the  strokes  the  time,  to  a  tenth  of  a  second,  of  the  transit.  It 
is  true  that  instruments  vary ;  but  the  essential  of  the  method  is  that  the 
decimal  part  of  a  second  is  determined  by  an  estimate  of  a  decimal  part 
of  an  imaginary  line  the  ends  of  which  are  fixed  by  the  positions  of  the 
image  of  the  star  when  the  clock  strikes  the  two  seconds  nearest  the 
transit-time. 

If  the  estimates  do  not  contain  the  systematic  error  which  we  have 
been  portraying,  they  should,  in  an  aggregate  of  a  thousand  or  more, 
distribute  fairly  evenly  over  the  respective  tenths  from  0  to  p. 

F.  Boquet "  tabulated  a  large  number  of  observations  made  by 
three  observers  at  the  Paris  Observatory  during  all  seasons  of  the  year 
and  with  three  different  instruments.  The  aggregated  results  for  the 
three  respective  observers  (A,  4000  observations;  B,  3000;  and  C,  2000) 
are  shown  in  Plate  XXIV,  Curves  A,  B,  and  C.  He  concluded  that  there 
is  an  error  of  estimation  for  each  tenth  which  remains  sensibly  constant 
for  each  observer ;  and  that  this  error  varies  from  one  observer  to  an- 
other.35 This  error  he  called  "I'equation  decimale,"  which  is  the  same  as 
Peirce's  "time-scale,"  or  what  has  been  more  generally  called  the  "per- 
sonal scale,"  since  it  may  refer  to  either  space  or  time. 

P.  Briick  38  produced  new  examples,  in  considerable  quantity,  from 
his  own  observations :  2000  observations  of  stars  in  the  equatorial  lati- 
tude, made  during  1889-90,  and  3980  of  stars  in  -260  and  +68°  made  in 
1890.  The  distribution  of  the  aggregated  observations  is  shown  in  Curve 
E  of  the  same  plate.  He  concluded  that  change  in  declination  does  not 
change  his  systematic  errors. 

G.  Lewitzky,37  of  Charkow,  published  the  distribution  of  1868  tran- 
sits of  stars  of  the  first  four  magnitudes,  made  by  himself  by  the  Zinger 
method,  which  is  shown  in  Curve  F.  He  supplemented  Boquet's  conclu- 
sions with  the  observation  that  always  one  of  the  intermediate  tenths 
(0.4-0.7)  is  least  often  estimated  by  each  observer. 


34  Boquet :    Recherche  sur  la  valeur  des  observations  de  passages.     Bulletin 
Astronomique,  Paris,  1889,  6:337-343. 
36  Op.  cit.,  p.  341. 

36  Briick :     Documents  relatifs  a  I'equation  decimale.     Idem,  1890,  7:413-8. 

37  Lewitzky:     Ueber  den   personlichen   Fehler  bei   Durchgangsbeobachtungen. 
Astronomische  Nachrichten,  1890,  124:105-8. 


01234E67690         012S4667890 


012346978SO 


01234667 


Plate  XXIV.—  Star-Transits.     Distributions  of  tenths  of  a  second, 
showing  the  "equation  decimale." 

Curve  A.     Paris   Observatory,   observer   A.    4000   cases.        (From  Boquet.  ) 

B.  "                 "                   "          B.    3000      "             (     "            "  ) 

C.  "                 "                   "          C.    2000      "             (     "            "  ) 

E.  Besancon       "                      Briick.     5980      "             (     "  Briick.  ) 

F.  Charkow        "  Lewitzky.     1868      "  (     "  Lewitzky.) 

— Ages  of  the  Latin  dead. 

D.  Ages  from  the  Corpus  Inscriptionum  Latinarum.  (      "  Beloch.  ) 


258  MENTAL  HABIT 

Otto  Meissner,38  of  Potsdam,  reported  several  distributions  of  a 
large  number  of  observations  of  transits  made  by  observers  N.  and  K. 
The  former  of  8,505,  and  the  latter  of  16,215  observations  are  shown  in 
Plate  XXV,  Curves  A  and  B.  Two  sets,  of  2249  and  2100  observations 
respectively,  made  by  Observer  N.  in  periods  four  years  apart,  show  the 
permanence  of  this  observer's  equation  decimate;  their  distributions  are 
shown  in  Curves  C  and  D.  The  distribution  of  a  large  number  of  ob- 
servations (12,285)  made  by  a  third  observer  {IV.)  is  of  special  inter- 
est since  the  distribution  of  the  first  set  of  2069  observations  exhibited 
the  characteristics  of  the  usual  "personal  scale"  while  that  of  the  aggre- 
gate departs  from  them  widely.  Curve  H  (Plate  XXV)  shows  the  dis- 
tribution of  the  aggregate  in  heavy  line ;  Curve  /,  the  distribution  of  the 
first  set  in  light  broken  line ;  and  Curve  K,  the  distribution  of  the  sixth 
set  (1839  observations)  in  light  solid  line.  The  explanation  is  that  the 
observer  became  aware  of  his  systematic  error,  especially  upon  the  0 
tenth  and  sought  to  correct  it.  The  lesson  is  that  the  observer's  con- 
sciousness of  how  his  observations  are  distributed  is  not  reliable.  The 
neglect  of  0  in  the  last  set  is  greater  than  the  preference  for  it  in  the 
first.  The  preferences  of  2  over  /,  7  over  6,  and  8  over  9,  are  common 
to  the  three  curves — persistent  elements  of  the  observer's  "personal 
scale." 

Boquet  has  shown  30  by  the  tabulation  of  a  relatively  small  number 
of  observations  that  the  equation  decimate  remains  fairly  constant  in  the 
individual  observer's  use  of  different  instruments.  Observer  B.  made 
712  observations  with  the  Cercle  meridien  du  Jardin,  946  with  the  Lu- 
nette de  Gambey,  and  1000  with  the  Grand  instrument  meridien,  the  re- 
spective distributions  of  which  are  shown  in  Plate  XXV,  Curves  E,  F, 
and  G. 

He  also  has  shown  40  that  the  error  of  the  observer  persists  whether 
he  makes  his  observation  by  the  eye-and-ear  method,  by  the  eye  only, 
or  by  the  ear  only.  One  observer  made  1000  observations  each  with  the 
Grand  instrument  meridien  (1)  by  the  eye-and-ear  method,  (2)  by  read- 
ing the  Cercle — eye  only,  ( 3 )  and  by  reading  the  niveau — eye  only ;  and 
(4)  he  made  1000  estimates,  in  tenths  of  a  second,  by  comparing  the 
strokes   of   the  second  and   the  half-second   siderial   chronometers — ear 


38  Meissner:  Ueber  systematische  Fehler  bei  Zeit-  und  Raumgrossenschatz- 
ungen.    Astronomische  Nachrichten,  Kiel,  1906,  172:137-143. 

30  Boquet :  Les  recherches  des  astronomes  sur  l'equation  decimale.  L'annee 
Psychologique,   1913,  19:27-65. 

40  Boquet :     Sur  l'equation  decimale.     Bulletin  Astronomique,  1903,  20:165-170. 


Curv*  A 

*00_ 

lop. 

0 

I 

II 

n 

4   B  e 

7 

e 

i     ) 

1 

Cui^rO  B 

160  _ 

\ 

I 

60- 

V 

0. 

01234567890         01234667690 

240  _ 


0    1 

a 

4    5    6 

7 

B 

9 

0 

160  _ 

Curve  D 

50  - 

0   1 

2 

i 

6    7   6 

9   0 

Curves  H,  J, 

and  K 

160- 

.J 

A 

t 

V 

^•— "*** 

1 

loo 

\            \ 

i 

^-   \ 

/  r 

\L^" 

/K 

^ 

50  _ 

0. 

12        3        4        5        6        7 


01234567890 


Plate    XXV.— Star-Transits    (continued).      Showing   independence   of    "I' equation 
Curve  decimate"  of  practice,  instrument,  and  voluntary  correction. 

A.  Potsdam  Observatory,  observer  K.  8505 

B.  "  "  "         N.  16,215 

C.  "  "  "         N.  2249  early 

D.  "  "  "         N.  2100  later 

E.  Paris  "  "         B.       Cercle ;  712 

F.  "  "  "         B.     Lunette;  946 

G.  "  "  "        B.     Grand  Instr.    1000 
H.     Potsdam              "                    "       W.  12,285 

/.  "  "  "       W.  2069  early 

K.  "  "  "      W.  1839  later 


cases,  (From  Meissner.) 


Boquet. 


Meissner. 


260  MENTAL  HABIT 

only.  The  respective  distributions  are  shown  in  Plate  XXVI,  Curves 
A,  B,  C,  and  D  (solid  line).  Curve  E,  superposed  over  Curve  D,  shows 
the  distribution  found  by  J.  Plassmann  41  in  estimating  by  ear  tenths  of 
seconds ;  although  the  two  observers  have  characteristic  differences  their 
curves  agree  in  type:  the  double  "U"  form— the  objective  unit  was  a 
half-second  interval.  Curves  of  this  type  represent  the  normal  "personal 
scale"  when  the  observations  are  made  from  instruments  which  have 
the  0.5  calibration,  as  may  be  seen  from  the  adjacent  Curves  (/  and  K) 
which  are  drawn  from  data  presented  by  G.  Hellmann.42  The  solid  line 
gives  the  distribution  of  3652  observations  of  a  0.50  thermometer  at 
Erfurt  during  the  years  1901-10;  the  broken  line,  of  an  equal  number  of 
like  observations  made  during  the  same  period  at  Wasserleben. 

Professor  S.  D.  Townley,  however,  had  previously  published  43  dis- 
tributions of  his  own  transit  observations,  which  indicated  that  the  equa- 
tion decimate  persists,  in  part  at  least,  after  the  observer  increases  his 
vigilance,  and  even  after  he  turns  from  time-estimation  by  ear  to  space- 
estimation  by  eye.  He  explained  that  although  he  used  the  eye-and-ear 
method,  with  a  three-inch  Fauth  transit  and  a  chronometer  beating  half- 
seconds,  he  estimated  "the  time  of  the  transit  of  the  star,  not  the  space 
passed  over,  to  the  nearest  tenth  of  a  second."  His  first  series  of  188 
observations  (see  Plate'  XXVI,  Curve  F)  revealed  a  strong  preference 
for  0  and  5,  and  a  marked  neglect  for  4  and  8.  "Feeling  sure  that  such 
large  discrepancies  should  not  occur,"  he  determined  to  watch  himself 
in  future,  and  he  carried  out  a  second  series  of  816  observations  (see 
Curve  G)  in  which,  although  the  deviations  as  a  whole  were  much  de- 
creased, the  preference  for  0  and  the  neglect  of  4  and  8  remained.  And 
these  three  characteristics  persist  in  a  third  series  of  211  observations 
with  the  chronograph,  by  which  the  estimations  were  made  from  the 
chronograph  sheets  by  eye  (see  Curve  H). 

It  may  perhaps  be  properly  remarked  here  that  the  mental  habit  of 
the  equation  decimale,  or  the  "personal  scale,"  is  to  be  distinguished 
from  that  of  the  "personal  equation"  44  which  is  also  associated  with  the 

41  Plassmann :  Festschrift  der  Gorres-Gesellschaft  fiir  Georg  von  Hertling. 
Kempten  and  Miinchen,  1913,  S.  497  ff. :  quoted  by  Bauch :  Beobachtungsfehler  in 
der  Meteorologischen  Praxis.     Fortschritte  der  Psychologic,  1914,  2:252. 

«  Op.  cit.,  p.  286. 

43  Townley :  Notes  from  the  time-service  of  the  Washburn  Observatory. 
Astronomy  and  Astro-physics,  Northfield,  Minn.,  1892,  11:467-9. 

44  An  excellent  historical  and  explanatory  account  of  the  Personal  Equation 
has  been  written  by  E.  C.  Sanford :  American  Journal  of  Psychology,  1888,  2:3-38, 
271-298,  403-430. 


01234667890         01334567890 


Plate  XXVI.— Star-Transits   (continued).     Distributions  showing  independence  of 
Qjrve  "I'equation  decimale"  of  the  special  senses. 

A.  Paris  Observatory,  observer  O.     Eye-and-ear.  iooo  cases.     (From  Boquet.) 

B.  "  "  "        O.     Eye  only   (Cercle)  iooo      " 

C.  "  "  "        O.     Eye  only  (Niveau)  iooo 

D.  "  "  "        O.     Ear  only  (time)       iooo 

E.  Warendorf  Gymnasium.     Plassmann.  Ear  only(time)  ofr 

F.  Washburn  Obs.  Eye-and-ear  method.     Ear   only. 

G.  "  "     Eye-and-ear  method.     Ear  only. 
//.              "  "    Chronograph  method.     Eye  only.  211      " 

— Thermometric  Observations,  with  .5°  Calibrations.    Showing  curves  com- 
parable with  curves  D  and  E  in  which  .5  sec.was  the  standard  of  judgment. 
/.     Erfurt,   1901-10.  3652  cases.      (From  Hellmann.) 

K.    Wasserleben,  1901-10.     3652  cases. 


"     Bauch. 
188      "     (From  Townley.) 
816      " 


262  MENTAL  HABIT 

estimation  of  star-transits  but  which  is  more  directly  operative  in  the 
chronograph  method  of  observation.     By  this  method  the  observer  with 
his  hand  on  a  telegraph  key  signals  the  moment  the  image  of  the  star  is 
bisected  by  the  meridian  line.     His  "personal  equation"  is  his  reaction- 
time.    And  since  it,  too,  is  subject  to  the  influence  of  mental  habit,  even 
to  the  extreme  of  becoming  a  negative  quantity   (in  anticipatory  reac- 
tion), its  operation  in  astronomical  observation  constitutes  another  dis- 
tinct type  of  influence  of  mental  habit  upon  judgment.     Of  course,  the 
"personal  equation"  is  also  operative  in  the  eye-and-ear  method  of  ob- 
servation, in  fixing  the  locations  of  the  star-image  the  distance  between 
which  the  meridian  intersects ;   and  its  effect  may  be  simulated  if  the  ag- 
gregate of  the   frequencies  of  the  tenths  (5-0  exceeds  that  of  the  fre- 
quencies of  the  tenths  1-4  in  the  observer's  "personal  scale,"   for,  ob- 
viously, an  average  of  a  number  of  observations  would  be  too  large,  the 
transit  would  be  reported  too  late.     On  the  other  hand  should  the  ex- 
cess fall  upon  the  tenths  1-4,  the  usual  "personal  equation"  would  be 
opposed  and  the  transit  would  be  reported  too  early.     But,  practically, 
as  was  remarked  by  Chauvenet,45  since  the  effect  of  the  "personal  scale" 
of  an  observer  may  be  considered  as  constant,  and  as  combining  with  the 
"personal  equation,"  it  may  be  regarded  as  forming  part  of  the  latter,  as 
determined  from  a  large  number  of  observations.     Corrective  formulae 
for  the  "personal  equation"  eliminate  the  effects  of  both  from  the  mean 
of  a  large  number  of  observations.     For  correction  of  the  time  of  single 
transits,  however,  "personal  scale"  formulae  are  required. 

Estimates  of  Time  and  Space. 

Some  experimental  results  of  estimates  of  time  and  space  contrib- 
ute to  our  inquiry  concerning  the  influence  of  mental  habit  upon 
judgment. 

Yerkes  and  Urban48  had  525  reagents  (251  young  men  from  17-23 
years  of  age,  and  274  young  women  from  17-20  years  of  age)  estimate 
in  seconds  four  different  intervals  of  time  (18,  36,  72,  and  108  seconds) 
under  four  varying  conditions  (idleness,  listening  to  reading,  writing, 
and  estimating  by  counting  or  otherwise).  The  men  gave  4014  judg- 
ments; the  women  4375.  When  the  two  sets  of  judgments  were  dis- 
tributed over  the  digit-scale  according  to  the  unit's  digit  they  gave  the 


«  Chauvenet :  A  Manual  of  Spherical  and  Practical  Astronomy.  Philadelphia, 
1891,  vol.  II,  p.  193. 

46  Robert  M.  Yerkes  and  F.  M.  Urban :  Time-estimation  in  its  relation  to  sex, 
age,  and  physiological  rhythms.    Harvard  Psychological  Studies,  1906,  2 :  405-43°- 


INFLUENCE  OF  MENTAL  HABIT  UPON   JUDGMENT 


263 


distributions  shown  in  Curves  A  and  B,  Plate  XXVII.  Part  of  the  pref- 
erence for  o  and  5,  however,  was  caused  by  a  mental  habit  of  estimating 
in  simple  fractional  parts  of  a  minute  (15,  30,  45,  60  seconds).  After 
the  influence  of  this  habit  was  eliminated47  the  distribution  shown  in 
Curve  C  was  obtained.    The  deviations  in  this  curve,  then,  show  the  in- 




Curvei  A  «4  B 

1 

BOO- 

400- 

A  * 

soo. 

800. 

/'  \ 

100 

/         A 

0  . 

<^ 

^~^!i                V.__- 

'"*"  -■! 

0        18        5        4 


8        7        •        9        O 


0 

1 

8 

8        4        6        S        7 

8 

0    0 

Curv»  F 

300- 

800- 

0  . 

*, 

X 

c 

-•-- 

_ 

... 

01354867 


0        12        3        4        6        6        7 


Plate  XXVII.— Time  and  Space  Estimations.     Distributions  showing  number- 
preference  and  the  "personal  scale." 
Curve  A.    Time  estimates,  men,        4014  judgments.     (From  Yerkes  and  Urban.) 

B.  "  "         women,   4375 

C.  "  "        Corrected  Aggregate.  *'      Urban. 

D.  Space  estimates,  V10  millimeter,  horizontal     3000  cases.   (From  Bauch.) 
£  "  "  "  "  vertical.        3000      " 

F,         "  "  '/,„   decimeter,    horizontal.    1000      " 

fluence  of  mental  habit  in  the  use  of  numbers  when  relatively  long  inter- 
vals of  time  are  estimated. 

Michael  Bauch48  sought  experimentally  to  determine  the  common 
"personal  scale"  in  judgments  of  divisions  of  small  and  large  spaces  be- 
tween calibrations.     By  exhibiting  each  division  an  equal  number  of 


"Vide,  F.  M.  Urban:  On  systematic  errors  in  time-estimation.  American 
Journal  of  Psychology,  1907,  18:189. 

« Bauch :  Psychologische  Untersuchungen  iiber  Beobachtungsfehler.  Fort- 
schritte  der  Psychologie,  1913,  1 :  169-226. 


264  MENTAL  HABIT 

times  he  could  eliminate  the  error  due  to  chance  deviation  which  cer- 
tainly is  not  avoided  when  the  presentation  of  the  various  divisions  is 
left  to  nature.  Grossmann,  for  example,  found,49  by  the  use  of  Mikro- 
skopmikrometertrommeln  which  permitted  the  reading  of  time  to  a  hun- 
dredth of  a  second,  that  the  distribution  of  1458  transit-times  over  the 
tenth's  digits  presented  deviations  as  high  as  ±8  per  1000;  and  of  2037 
transit-times,  as  high  as  ±6. 

Bauch  presented  each  division  with  very  accurate  apparatus,  300 
times,  to  10  reagents  who  made  300  judgments  each.  Each  distribution 
included  3000  judgments.  Curve  D  shows  the  distribution  of  judgments 
of  the  decimal  divisions  of  a  millimeter  when  the  scale  was  horizontal; 
Curve  E,  when  it  was  vertical.  Only  two  reagents  were  common  to  the 
two  sets,  and  six  out  of  the  ten  in  the  latter  set  were  experienced  meteor- 
ological observers.  Curve  F  gives  the  distribution  of  1000  judgments 
by  ten  other  observers  upon  percentile  divisions  of  a  decimeter,  ex- 
pressed in  centimeters  and  millimeters ;  the  centimeters  were  disre- 
garded in  the  distribution  (only  14  in  the  aggregate  of  1000  judgments 
were  in  error  as  much  as  a  centimeter). 

Whether  the  millimeter  scale  is  horizontal  or  vertical  the  influence 
of  mental  habit  in  the  estimates  of  decimal  parts  is  present;  although 
the  observers  have  succeeded  in  reducing  the  usual  preference  for  0  they 
have  not  succeeded  in  avoiding  a  large  negative  error  on  5.  And  in  the 
estimates  of  percentile  parts  of  a  decimeter  (almost  4  inches)  the  esti- 
mate approaches  more  nearly  a  guess  and  falls  more  completely  under 
the  control  of  mental  habit. 

With  respect  to  the  ratio  of  correct  judgments,  it  is  interesting  to 
note  that  for  the  horizontal  millimeter-scale  it  was  71%,  for  the  vertical 
millimeter-scale,  70.5%,  and  for  the  decimeter-scale,  only  18%  ;  and  that 
in  the  estimates  of  the  decimal  parts  of  a  millimeter  the  R  cases  are 
higher  (in  per  cent  of  guesses  delivered)  upon  the  o  and  5  tenths  (see 
Curves  D1  and  fj,  while  in  the  guessing  of  the  percentile  divisions  of 
a  decimeter,  they  are  higher  on  /,  4,  and  p  (see  Curve  FJ, — the  milli- 
meter numbers  least  often  guessed, — which  indicates  that  for  these 
values  the  judgment  was  more  often  an  estimate;  that  is,  in  the  course 
of  judging,  the  influence  of  mental  habit  determined  a  relatively  greater 
number  of  guesses  upon  the  digits  0,  5,  2,  and  8,  just  as  it  did  in  the  giv- 
ing of  ages  and  of  students'  grades. 

The  close  agreement  of  Curves  C  and  F,  the  one  resulting  from  es- 
timates of  relatively  long  time,  the  other  from  estimates  of  a  relatively 


4»  Op.  cit.,  p.  151. 


INFLUENCE  OF   MENTAL  HABIT  UPON   JUDGMENT  265 

large  space,  with  Curve  C,  in  Plate  XXa,  (star  magnitudes;  Gross- 
mann's  Observer  H.)  ;  with  Curve  B,  Plate  XXI  (temperature  in  Mauri- 
tius) ;  Curve  B  (New  England  rain-fall),  Curve  E  (estimates  of  age), 
Curve  F  (terms  of  criminal  sentence),  Curve  G  (star-magnitudes),  and 
Curve  H  (students'  grades),  in  Plate  XXII,  as  well  as  with  Curve  D 
(ages  of  the  Latin  dead),  Plate  XXIV,  indicates  quite  clearly  that  we 
have  here  the  typical  form  of  a  "personal  scale"  which  results  from  the 
influence  of  mental  habit  upon  judgment  when  judgment  is  delivered 
upon  such  values  as  permit  a  fairly  wide  range  of  error. 

Thus  far,  the  estimates  which  reveal  the  influence  of  the  number- 
habit  were  made  upon  unknown  quantities  under  such  conditions  that 
they  could  be  expected  to  approximate  more  or  less  closely  the  objective 
values  of  those  quantities.  This  restriction  in  the  range  of  error,  it 
would  seem,  should  limit  considerably  the  influence  of  number-habits, 
unless  the  very  limitation  emphasizes  in  the  mind  the  unit  marks  on  the 
scale  used  in  making  the  estimate.  Some  experimental  results  are  avail- 
able for  determining  the  extent  of  the  influence  of  mental-habit  upon 
estimates  when  their  approximation  to  the  objective  values  could  not  be 
expected  to  be  close ;  i.  e.,  when  the  range  of  error  was  large.  Let  us 
examine  several  studies  in  guessing. 

Studies  in  Guessing. 

Professor  Dresslar60  examined  the  returns  of  a  guessing  contest 
held  in  a  clothing  store  in  Los  Angeles,  California.  A  prize  of  one  hun- 
dred dollars  in  gold  was  to  be  given  to  the  person  or  persons  who 
guessed  the  number  of  seeds  in  an  uncut  monster  squash  which  was  on 
exhibition.  A  guess  was  made  by  each  one  of  7,700  persons.  Many  of 
the  guesses  were  as  high  as  1,000,000,  while  several  were  more  than 
10,000,000;  6,863  (4. 238  made  by  men,  2,625  by  women)  fell  below 
1000,  and  these  were  selected  for  the  study. 

The  prize  was  divided  among  three  contestants  each  of  whom 
guessed  811,  declared  by  the  officials  to  be  the  true  count. 

Professor  Dresslar  said: 

It  occurred  to  me  that  a  study  of  these  guesses  would  reveal  some  interest- 
ing number  preferences,  if  any  existed,  for  the  conditions  were  unusually  favor- 
able for  calling  forth  naive  and  spontaneous  results,  there  being  no  way  of  ap- 
proximating the  number  of  seeds  by  calculation,  and  very  little  or  no  definite  ex- 
perience npon  which  to  rely  for  guidance.  It  seemed  probable,  therefore,  that 
the  guesses  would  cover  a  wide  range,  and  by  reason  of  this  furnish  evidence  of 


00  Dresslar :     Guessing,  as  influenced  by  number  preferences.     Pop.  Sci.  Mo., 
1899,  54:  781-6. 


266 


MENTAL  HABIT 


whatever  number  preference  might  exist.  It  is  undoubtedly  safe  to  assume,  too, 
that  the  guesses  made  were  honest  attempts  to  state  as  nearly  as  possible  best 
judgments  under  conditions  given;  but  even  if  some  of  the  guesses  were  more 
or  less  facetiously  made,  the  data  would  be  equally  valuable  for  the  main  purpose 
in  hand. 

According  to  the  theory  of  probability,  had  there  been  no  preference  at  all 
for  certain  digits  or  certain  combinations  of  digits  within  the  limits  of  the  guesses, 
one  figure  would  occur  about  as  often  as  another  in  units'  or  tens'  place.  It  was 
argued,  therefore,  that  any  marked  or  persistent  variation  from  such  regularity 
in  such  a  great  number  of  cases  would  reveal  what  might  be  termed  an  uncon- 
scious preference  for  such  numbers  or  digits  for  these  places.51 

If  the  digits  occupying  the  unit's  place,  in  the  respective  guesses, 
are  tabulated  over  the  ten-digit  series,  we  get  the  distribution  shown  in 
Curve  A,  Plate  XXVIII;  the  distribution  of  the  digits  occupying  the 
ten's  place  is  shown  in  Curve  B. 

Professor  Sanford,63  suspecting  that  a  thorough  study  of  guessing 
might  "be  expected  to  throw  light  upon  some  of  the  less  obvious,  and 


0 

1 

fl 

8 

4   6   6   7   6 

9    C 

ISO 

Curve  D 

| 

160 

/ 

120 

/^    

/ 

eo 

-y 

00 

SO 

0 

Plate  XXVIII. —  Guessing.     Curves  showing  number-preferences. 
Curve  A.    Guessing  of  seeds  in  a  squash,  unit's  digit.    6863  cases.  (From  Dresslar.) 

B.  "  "  "        ten's        "       6863       " 

C.  "  beans       "     bottle,  unit's      "        1043       "  Sanford 

D.  "  "  "       ten's       "       1043      " 


61  Loc.  cit.,  pp.  781-2. 

63  Sanford :     On   the   guessing  of  numbers.     Am.   Jr.  Psychology,   1903,    14 : 
647-665. 


INFLUENCE  OF  MENTAL  HABIT  UPON   JUDGMENT  267 

perhaps  unconscious,  influences  that  determine  opinion  and  action"  (p. 
645),  made  a  study  of  the  returns  of  a  guessing  contest  held  by  a  dealer 
in  photographic  supplies,  in  Worcester,  Massachusetts;  2817  guesses 
were  made  by  767  persons  on  the  number  of  small  white  beans  con- 
tained in  a  5-pint  bottle.  The  range  in  the  2,573  guesses  of  the  651  men 
was  from  285  to  3,425,602;  in  the  244  guesses  of  the  114  women,  from 
250  to  2,675,181,756.  After  the  elimination  of  the  frequent  guessers 
(those  who  guessed  more  than  five  times),  and  of  a  few  irregular 
guesses,  there  remained,  for  the  purpose  of  the  study,  1043  guesses,  with 
a  range  of  285  to  1,000,000,  and  a  median  of  7,257.  The  correct  num- 
ber of  beans  was  announced  to  be  8,834.  Tabulation  of  the  digits  oc- 
cupying the  unit's  place  gave  the  distribution  shown  in  Curve  C,  Plate 
XXVIII ;  of  the  digits  occupying  the  ten's  place  gave  the  distribution 
shown  in  Curve  D. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  these  curves  bear  a  strong  family  resemblance 
to  the  curves  of  Plate  XXI I,64  which  exhibit  the  distributions  of  esti- 
mates of  such  values  as  preclude  a  wide  range  of  error.  The  round- 
number  preference  is  very  marked  on  the  0  abscissa.  The  preference  for 
5  is  overshadowed  by  stronger  preferences  for  3  or  7.  Dresslar  deduced 
from  his  study  the  following  preferences,  which  he  suggested  may  be 
widely  habitual : 

1.  For  o   (round  numbers). 

2.  For  odd  numbers,  especially  7. 

3.  For  duplication ;   such  as  777. 

Sanford  tabulated  the  following  preferences : 

1.  For  round  numbers. 

2.  For  particularized  numbers ;    as,  7001,  4035  1/2. 

3.  For  repetitional  numbers  (Dresslar's  duplication). 

4.  For  symmetrical  numbers ;    as,  10101. 

5.  For  serial  numbers ;    as,  1234,  9876,  6783. 

6.  For  particular  digits.66 

He  pointed  out  that 

.  .  .  Number  preferences — so  far  at  least  as  they  can  be  judged  by  mass  re- 
turns— are  not  constant,  but  vary  with  the  conditions  under  which  the  numbers 
are  used.  The  odd  numbers  are  preferred  in  the  unit's  place  in  "guessing  con- 
tests," but  the  even  (next  after  the  5's  and  io's)  in  the  estimations  of  ages,  and 
two  years  is  the  most  frequent  criminal  sentence.56 


6*  Supra,  p.  253. 

55  The  order  of  preference,  in  unit's  place,  was  o,  3,  I,  7,  9,  5,  6,  2,  8,  4. 

66  Op.  cit.,  p.  398. 


268  MENTAL  HABIT 

And  he  concludes  his  study  with  the  following  summary: 

The  data  presented  seem  to  me  to  bring  out  clearly  several  points  with  re- 
gard to  habits  in  the  guessing  of  numbers,  (i)  These  habits  are  not  fixed  and 
constant,  as  seems  generally  to  have  been  assumed,  but  vary  characteristically  with 
variations  in  the  conditions  under  which  the  guessing  is  carried  out.  (2)  Two- 
thirds  of  the  guessers  in  the  "guessing  contest"  here  studied  made  use  of  particu- 
larized numbers,  showing  more  or  less  preference  for  certain  digits,  especially  in 
the  unit's  place.  (3)  About  one-third  guessed  round  numbers  or  those  adjacent 
to  them,  or  numbers  showing  a  repetitional  or  serial  character  in  the  digits  chosen. 
There  was  also  a  slight,  but  uncertain,  indication  of  a  more  general  tendency  to 
move,  in  choosing  a  series  of  digits,  by  short  steps  along  the  digit  scale.  (4)  No 
evidence  was  discovered  that  the  guessing  habits  of  women  and  girls  differed  from 
those  of  men  and  boys.     (p.  665). 

Sanford's  conclusion  that  number-preferences  vary  with  the  con- 
ditions under  which  the  numbers  are  used,  is  important.  He  was  assisted 
to  this  conclusion  by  a  comparison  of  his  results  with  those  of  Professor 
Minot  who  collected  from  10  persons  8,600  guesses  on  the  first  ten  num- 
bers, 0-9. 

The  study  made  by  Professor  Minot "  relates  the  number-habit 
directly  to  experiments  in  thought-transference,  carried  out  under  the 
direction  of  the  Committee  of  the  old  American  Society  for  Psychical 
Research.  The  instructions  (vide,  Proceedings,  Series  I,  1:15-6)  pro- 
vided for  the  guessing  of  the  digits  from  0  to  9  which  were  to  be  entered 
on  a  blank  in  irregular  order;  the  guessing  to  progress  in  series  of  ten 
in  direct  and  reverse  directions  over  the  recorded  order.  The  agent,  of 
course,  who  determined  the  order  of  the  digits,  entertained  in  his  mind 
the  proper  digit  during  the  forming  of  each  guess  by  the  percipient.  But 
the  latter,  knowing  the  conditions  of  the  experiment,  would  have  a  strong 
incentive  to  distribute  his  guesses  quite  evenly  over  the  number  series ; 
any  marked  deviations,  in  a  considerable  number  of  guesses,  would  in- 
dicate an  unconscious  influence  of  number-habit. 

Curves  A,  B,  and  C  in  Plate  XXIX  show  the  distributions  of  three 
respective  percipients  who  made  1000  guesses  each ;  and  Curve  D  shows 
the  distribution  of  the  aggregate  of  8600  cases. 

It  is  seen  at  once  that,  although  there  is  some  individual  variation 
in  number  preferences,  the  type  of  curve  is  different  from  the  type  dis- 
played in  all  of  the  preceding  plates. 

In  our  own  experiments  on  thought-transference,68  when  the  card 


"Minot:     The    Number-Habit.     Proceedings   Am.   S.P.R.,    1886,    Series    I, 
1:86-95. 

68  Supra,  pp.  48  ff . 


INFLUENCE  OF  MENTAL   HABIT  UPON  JUDGMENT 


269 


was  drawn  by  chance  and  the  guesses  included  the  number  of  spots  from 
I  to  10,  the  conditions  were  not  so  favorable  for  an  equitable  distribution 
of  the  guesses  over  the  respective  numbers,  although  the  reagent  (per- 
cipient) knew  that  in  the  long  run  the  respective  numbers  must  be  drawn 
an  approximately  equal  number  of  times.  On  the  whole  the  conditions 
were  not  very  different  from  those  of  the  American  Committee.  Each 
reagent  made  ioo  guesses.  Curve  E  gives  the  distribution  for  an  aggre- 
gate of  10,000  guesses. 


0128*567890 


s: 


01234567690 


0133*567890 


01234567B90         01234667 


Plate  XXIX. —  Guessing  (continued).     Curves  showing  a  new  type  of 

„  "personal  scale." 

Curve  r 

A.    Guessing  of  digits  0-9.    Reagent  G.  B.  1000  cases.     (From  Minot.) 

S.            "                   "       "             "        G.  W.  N.  1000      " 

C.  "                  "       "            "        C.  H.  B.  1000      " 

D.  "       "     Aggregate,           10  reagents.  8600      " 

E.  of  playing-cards  (1-10).         100  reagents.  10,000      "  (Stanford.) 

F.  "  ."   lotto-blocks  (10-90).   H.  Unit's  digits.  1000      "                         " 


270 


MENTAL  HABIT 


The  preferences  shown  in  these  curves  are  for  intermediate  digits, 
and  are  to  this  extent  controlled  by  the  special  conditions  of  guessing 
which  encouraged  an  unconscious  tendency  to  pass  more  or  less  irreg- 
ularly up  and  down  the  scale  of  digits,  accumulating  guesses  on  the  in- 
termediate digits  and  relatively  ignoring  the  terminal  digits. 

The  consistency  of  the  curves  presented  above  may  be  readily  ac- 
cepted as  evidence  that  their  general  form  is  not  due  to  chance  deviation. 
Were  statistical  evidence  desired,  however,  it  could  be  readily  supplied ; 
e.  g.,  in  Curve  E  of  Plate  XXIX,  the  number  of  guesses  plotted  is  10,000, 


Drawing 


100^ 

87# 
75?& 


8        9      10 


Guessing        100# 


87# 


75# 


8 


10 


Plate   XXX. —  Deviations   from   Probability  in   the   frequency  the   respective   cards 

(spots  1-10)   were  drawn  and  guessed.     Showing  influence  of  mental 

habit  in  guessing.     100  Reagents.     10,000  cases. 

and  the  probability  is  10%,  or  100  per  M.  From  Table  XLI 69  we  find  that 
the  limit  of  chance  deviation  is  1.3%  or  13  per  M ;  any  values  lying  out- 
side the  field  of  87-113  are  consequently  indicative  of  extra-chance  cause. 
These  upper  and  lower  limits  of  chance  deviation  are  shown  in  the  curve, 
and  four  of  the  ten  values  are  seen  to  lie  definitely  beyond  these  limits, 
while  four  more  very  closely  approach  them.  This  evidence  is  corrobor- 
ated by  the  excess  of  deviation  in  the  guessing  over  the  deviation  in  the 
drawing  as  shown  in  Plate  XXX,  which  is  drawn  from  the  card-guessing 
data.    The  upper  curve  shows  the  deviations  resulting  from  drawing  the 


59  Supra,  p.  89. 


INFLUENCE  OF   MENTAL  HABIT  UPON   JUDGMENT  271 

cards  by  chance  from  a  shuffled  pack,  and  constitutes  "empirical  prob- 
ability." 

Distribution  of  the  Number-Habit. 

Whether  the  influence  of  mental  habit  upon  judgment,  as  shown  in 
the  curves  which  have  been  displayed  in  the  above  pages,  is  shared  by 
only  a  relatively  few  individuals  whom  the  influence  dominates  to  a  high 
degree,  or  by  the  great  majority  of  the  persons  contributing  the  data 
whom  the  influence  dominates  in  a  lower  degree,  is  a  question  that  may 
be  inspected  a  little  more  narrowly.  That  the  distribution  of  the  number- 
habit  is  fairly  general  is  indicated  by  several  facts  already  before  the 
reader:  (i)  The  data  contributed  by  a  large  number  of  people  (as  in 
age-returns,  students'  grades,  and  the  guessing  of  the  number  of  seeds 
in  a  squash,  or  of  the  number  of  pips  on  a  card)  show  number-prefer- 
ences in  large  amounts;  and  (2)  the  data  contributed  by  individual 
scientific  men  do  not  fail  to  show  the  influence  of  mental  habit.  The 
results  of  our  experiments  iii  guessing,  however,  throw  some  more 
definite  light  on  the  question. 

Individual  variation,  as  has  already  been  observed,  must  be  ex- 
pected here.  In  Plate  XXII  60  Curves  C  and  D  show  some  individual 
variation  between  two  observers  in  scientific  estimates,  of  the  same  kind ; 
notably,  on  abscissa  5.  In  Plate  XXIX,61  Curves  A,  B,  C,  and  F  "2  show 
individual  variation  in  the  number  preferences  of  four  reagents  in  guess- 
ing the  ten  digits.  In  Curves  A,  B,  and  C,  3  is  preferred;  in  B,  C,  and 
F,  J ;  in  A  and  B,  6 ;  in  A  and  F,  2 ;  and  in  B,  5.  Since  these  curves  are 
based  upon  1000  guesses  each,  the  indications  of  preference  just  noted 
may  be  regarded  as  fairly  reliable. 

In  our  own  card-guessing,  since  each  reagent  made  but  100  guesses, 
the  individual  curves  are  not  so  reliable  criteria  of  individual  preferences. 
But  if  they  are  compared  en  masse  with  the  corresponding  curves  of 
cards  drawn,  i.  e.,  the  empirical  probability  curves,  the  fact  of  fairly  lib- 
eral distribution  of  number-preference  may  be  appreciated  by  visual  in- 
spection. Plate  XXXI  presents  in  greatly  reduced  size  both  classes  of 
curves  for  our  100  sets  of  100  experiments  each.  It  will  be  seen  that 
some  of  the  number  preferences  (in  the  lower  half  of  the  plate)  are  suf- 


60  Supra,  p.  253. 

01  Suj>ra,  p.  269. 

62  This  curve  gives  the  1000  guesses  of  the  digit  in  unit's  place  made  by  the 
reagent  whose  mental  habit  in  Lotto-Block-guessing  was  displayed  in  Plate  II,  p. 
44.  It  is  not  quite  comparable  with  the  other  curves  drawn  from  the  guesses  of 
only  the  ten  digits. 


272 


MENTAL  HABIT 


Plate  XXXI.— Frequency  of  Occurrence  of  the  respective  cards   (spots   i-io)    in 

sets  of  ioo  experiments,  as  drawn  (upper  series)  and  as  guessed  (lower  series). 

Showing  distribution  of  mental  habit  among  the  ioo  reagents. 


INFLUENCE  OF  MENTAL  HABIT  UPON   JUDGMENT 


273 


ficiently  great  to  be  recognized  and  definitely  identified ;  e.  g.,  those 
shown  in  the  curves  of  Reagents  7,  18,  21,  38,  42,  43,  47,  65,  67,  91,  95, 
and  95.  In  these  cases  the  curves  touch  or  cross  the  upper  enclosing 
line,  and  thus  exceed  the  largest  deviations,  shown  in  the  curves  of  drawn 
numbers  (in  the  upper  half  of  the  plate),  namely,  17  and  96.  Moreover, 
four  types  of  curves  may  be  distinguished :  The  "U"  type,  as  21,  67,  and 
91,  showing  preferences  for  the  terminal  digits  /  and  10;  its  reverse, 
as  5,  13,  I7,  18,  3i,  36,  41,  42,  43,  44,  49,  5°,  55,  56,  5*.  60,  62,  66,  69, 
71,  72,  72,  and  90,  showing  a  general  preference  for  the  intermediate 
digits ;  the  much  serrated  curve,  as  2,  27,  34,  48,  52,  57,  74,  87,  88,  93, 
97,  100,  showing  two  or  more  strong  preferences  for  digits  not  grouped 


SO  - 

20  - 

r'/ 

1  / 
1  / 

//  B 

— a 

\ 
\           \ 
\            \ 

\             ^ 

TV                                  » 

10- 

/: 
1 

i 

\ 

0 

125456789      10 
Plate  XXXII. —  Number-Preferences. 
Curve  A.     Distribution  of  the  176  stronger  preferences  in  our  card-guessing. 
B.  "    preferred    unit's    digits.      469    German   reagents. 

2346  choices.     (From  Marbe.) 

together  ;  and  the  single  strong  preferences,  as  7,  38,  and  47.  The  individ- 
ual preference  may  be  for  any  of  the  digits ;  Reagent  91  prefers  1 ;  78,  2 ; 
7,Z\  38,  4;  21,  5;  42,6;  82,7;  95,  8;  28,  9;  and  20,  10.  If  we  tab- 
ulate the  176  stronger  preferences  upon  the  digit  series  we  get  the  distri- 
bution shown  by  Curve  A,  Plate  XXXII.  The  excess  of  preferences  for 
5  and  its  neighboring  digits  is  in  agreement  with  the  results  of  an  in- 
vestigation of  number-preference  conducted  by  Karl  Marbe,63  and  shown 


63  Marbe :     Ueber  das  Gedankenlesen  und  die  Gleichformigkeit  des  psychischen 
Geschehens.    Zeitschrift  fur  Psychologie,  1910,  56:253-5. 


274  MENTAL  HABIT 

in  Curve  B.  In  Frankfurt  308  school  girls  (7-17  years  of  age),  and  in 
Wiirzburg  161  persons  (seminary  students  and  soldiers)  were  required 
to  write  down  as  quickly  as  possible  any  number  they  pleased  (eine 
beliebige  Zahl)  from  1  to  10,  11  to  20,  21  to  30,  31  to  40,  and  41  to  50. 


Plate  XXXIII. —  Distribution  of  the  Number  of  Times  a  number  was  drawn  (solid 

line)   or  guessed  (broken  line)   in  100  experiments.     The  theoretically 

probable   distribution  is  shown  by  the   smooth   curve. 

100  reagents.     1000  cases. 

Curve  B  gives  the  aggregate  distribution   for  the  2346  choices  of  the 
unit's  digit  by  the  469  reagents. 

If  we  disregard  what  the  particular  preferences  are  and  seek  to 
determine  more  definitely  to  what  extent  they  have  played  a  part  in  the 
guessing,  we  can  tabulate  the  number  of  times  each  reagent  has  guessed 
each  of  the  ten  digits.  If  his  guessing  were  distributed  evenly,  each  digit 
would  be  guessed  just  ten  times;  if  distributed  by  chance,  the  deviations 
from  10  times  would  be  distributed  about  10,  in  such  a  way  as  to  con- 
form to  the  empirical  distribution  (of  the  drawings)  or  to  the  theoretical 
distribution ;  if,  however,  the  number-habit  played  an  appreciable  role, 
the  deviations  would  be  more  widely  distributed  than  in  either  of  the 
other  distributions.  If  then  all  of  these  values,  for  the  100  reagents,  are 
aggregated,  a  definite  spread  of  the  distribution  beyond  the  two  chance- 
distributions  would  indicate  that  the  guessing  of  an  important  part  of  the 
reagents  was  influenced  by  the  number-habit,  since  a  single  reagent  con- 
tributes but  ten  values  to  the  aggregate  of  1000  values.  Plate  XXXIII 
displays  the  three  distribution-curves.  The  abscissae  (at  the  bottom  of 
the  plate)  denote  the  number  of  times  a  digit  (any  digit)  was  guessed 
by  a  reagent  (any  reagent)  in  his  hundred  experiments.  The  ordinates 
(on  the  left  margin)  indicate  the  number  of  cases  (or  the  frequency)  of 
the  abscissal  values.     The  distribution-curve  of   the  guesses  shows  a 


INFLUENCE  OF  MENTAL  HABIT  UPON   JUDGMENT  275 

definite  spread  beyond  the  chance  distribution-curves.  There  are  15 
cases  when  a  digit  was  not  guessed  at  all  in  a  hundred  guesses ;  42  cases 
a  digit  was  guessed  but  3  times,  while  chance  calls  for  but  5  or  8  cases ; 
48  cases  of  4  times,  chance  calling  for  but  15  to  22  cases;  42  cases  of 
17  times,  chance  calling  for  but  12  cases;  etc.,  and,  to  compensate,  the 
more  central  values  (7-14  times)  occur  much  less  frequently  than  chance 
calls  for.  On  the  lower  (left)  side  of  the  curve  of  guesses  there  are  152 
cases  lying  outside  the  range  of  chance  deviation ;  and  on  the  upper 
(right)  side,  113;  making  a  total  of  265,  or  26.5%,  of  the  guesses 
definitely  controlled  by  mental  habit.  The  reagents  not  only  preferred 
certain  numbers ;  they  avoided  or  ignored  certain  numbers  even  to  a 
greater  extent.  If  mental  habit  influenced  guesses  of  individual  reagents 
on  half  of  the  ten  digits,  53%  of  the  reagents  would  be  necessary  to  con- 
tribute 265  cases;  or  if  on  three  of  the  ten  digits,  88%  of  the  reagents 
would  be  necessary. 

That  the  proportion  of  reagents  whose  guesses  were  influenced  by 
mental  habit  must  be  large,  and  also  that  the  respective  mental  habits 
must  be  largely  common,  may  be  seen  from  Plate  XXXIV,  which  gives 
the  distribution-curves  of  the  "number  of  times  a  digit  was  guessed  in 
1000  experiments  by  10  reagents."     Since  there  were  ten  groups  of  10 


40     BO    60     70    80     90    100    110    120    ISO    140    150    160 

Plate  XXXIV.— Distribution  of  the  Number  of  Times  a  number  was  drawn  (solid 

line)    or  guessed    (broken  line)    in   iooo  experiments   by   10  reagents. 

10  groups  of  10  reagents,     ioo  cases. 

The  probable  distribution  is  shown  by  the  smooth  curve. 

reagents,  each  of  which  contributes  10  values,  the  curves  are  plotted  from 
ioo  values.  The  central  value  is  ioo  times.  On  the  central  abscissa, 
however,  the  values  of  96-104  are  plotted;  thus  each  abscissal  value  is 
the  central  of  ten  aggregated  inter-class  values.    The  spread  of  the  curve 


276  MENTAL  HABIT 

of  guesses  beyond  the  chance-curves  is  even  more  marked  than  in  the 
preceding  Plate.  The  number-habit  may  be  regarded  as  fairly  general 
among  our  ioo  reagents. 

Although  the  number-habit  is  fairly  generally  distributed  among  our 
reagents,  Plate  XXXI  84  shows  that  there  were  individual  differences  not 
only  in  the  controlling  force  of  the  habit  but  also,  as  was  noted  above, 
in  the  preferences ;  each  digit  being  markedly  preferred  by  some  re- 
agents, but  the  intermediate  digits  being  more  frequently  favored,  as 
was  shown  in  Plate  XXXII.  This  sort  of  variation  tends  to  erase  indi- 
cations of  the  influence  of  number-preference  when  the  guesses  of  all 
the  reagents  on  the  respective  digits  are  aggregated,  consequently  the 
curves  shown  in  Plates  XXIX  (Curve  E)  and  XXX,  above,  do  not  show 
the  full  force  of  the  influence. 

More  agreement  is  found  in  the  habit  of  neglect  which  more  often 
concerns  the  terminal  digits.  This  trait  in  guessing,  it  may  be  recalled, 
was  operative  in  the  judgments  delivered  by  our  reagents  in  the  experi- 
ments on  the  influence  of  peripheral  subliminal  impression,  to  such  a  de- 
gree that  the  probability  from  which  significant  deviations  were  sought 
had  to  be  revised  in  accordance  with  the  limitations  which  19  reagents 
out  of  26  had  imposed  upon  themselves.65 

Other  Mental  Habits. 

Our  experiments  in  card-guessing  permitted  the  appearance  of  other 
mental-habits  for  which  we  may  search  in  our  data.  Was  preference 
shown  for  color,  for  suit,  or  for  particular  cards  ? 

Red  cards  were  drawn  4894  times  in  the  10,000  experiments,  and  red 


Plate  XXXV. —  Distribution  of  the  Number  of  Times  a  red  card  was  drawn  (solid 

line)  or  guessed  (broken  line),  in  100  experiments.    100  reagents.    100  cases. 

Theoretical  probability  is  represented  by  the  smooth  curve. 


64  Supra,  p.  272 

65  Vide,  supra,  pp.  207  £. 


INFLUENCE  OF  MENTAL  HABIT  UPON  JUDGMENT 


277 


cards  were  guessed  5043  times.  This  approximation  to  theoretical  prob- 
ability (5000)  is  remarkable,  considering  that  chance  permits  a  deviation 
of  210.66  If  there  are  any  individual  preferences  they  are  completely 
canceled  in  the  aggregated  results.  That  individual  preferences  were 
negligible  may  be  seen  from  Plate  XXXV,  in  which  the  distribution- 
curve  of  guesses  may  be  compared  with  the  curves  of  drawings  and  of 
theoretical  probability.  Although  both  empirical  curves  are  much  ser- 
rated they  follow  the  general  course  of  the  theoretical  curve.  There  were 
only  three  cases  where  red  cards  were  guessed  by  an  individual  reagent 
over  62  times  in  his  hundred  guesses ;  and  only  one  case  below  35,  which, 
however,  since  it  is  so  far  below  the  lower  limit  of  the  chance  distribu- 
tions, indicates  a  significant  avoidance  of  red  cards  on  the  part  of  one 
reagent.  But  this  does  not  indicate  color  preference;  the  reagent  (7) 
had  a  preference  for  Spades  and  neglected  Diamonds,  Hearts  and  Clubs 
being  guessed  equally  often. 

Plate  XXXVI  shows  the  deviations  in  the  drawing  and  the  guessing 
of  suits,  for  the  aggregated  results.     Hearts  were  guessed  2654  times 


Drawing 


IOO96 


75# 


H  D 


IOO56 


Guessing 


75?6 


H 


Plate  XXXVI. —  Deviations  from  Probability  in  the  frequency  the  respective 
suits  were  drawn  and  guessed.     100  reagents.     10,000  cases. 


while  the  most  probable  number  is  2500  times,  and  Spades  were  drawn 
2660  times.  Since  chance  allows  a  deviation  of  180,67  or  an  aggregate  of 
2680  times,  we  have  no  indication  of  general  suit-preference.  A  few 
individual  reagents,  however,  were  subject  to  mental  habit  with  respect 
to  suit,  as  may  be  seen  from  Plate  XXXVII,  which  gives  the  distribu- 


te Cf.,  Table  XLI,  p.  89. 
<"  Cf.,  Table  XLI,  p.  89. 


278  MENTAL  HABIT 

tions  of  the  number  of  times  a  suit  (any  suit)  was  guessed,  was  drawn, 
and  is  to  be  expected,  in  a  set  of  ioo  experiments.  The  distribution- 
curve  of  the  guesses  (broken  line)  is  sensibly  lower  for  the  central  values 
than  the  chance-curves,  and  its  extreme  values  extend  beyond  the  chance 
limits.  There  are  10  cases  where  a  suit  was  guessed  less  than  14  times, 
and  5  cases  more  than  39  times:  Two  reagents  preferred  Hearts;  two, 
Spades ;  and  one,  Diamonds ;  three  of  these  five  reagents  avoided  a  suit, 
(two,  Clubs;  one,  Diamonds)  ;  and  among  the  seven  remaining  reagents 
who   avoided   a   suit    four   avoided    Diamonds ;    two,    Clubs ;    and    one, 


60 


Plate  XXXVII. —  Distribution  of  the  Number  of  Times  a  suit  was  drawn   (solid 

line)  or  guessed  (broken  line)  in  100  experiments.     Showing  influence 

of  mental  habit.     100  reagents.    400  cases. 

Theoretical  probability  is  represented  by  the  smooth  curve. 

Hearts.  Were  these  few  cases  to  be  accepted  as  indicative  of  a  general 
mental  habit,  one  would  say  that  Hearts  and  Spades  are  preferred, 
Diamonds  and  Clubs  are  avoided.  But  such  a  mental  habit  is  not  general ; 
it  influenced  to  a  definite  degree  only  12%  of  our  100  reagents  in  their 
guessing  of  suit. 

Mental  habit  also  influenced  the  guessing  of  individual  cards ;  and 
since  aggregate  guesses  upon  the  individual  cards  show  its  influence 
clearly,  many  of  the  preferences  must  be  common.  As  may  be  seen  from 
Plate  XXXVIII,  which  presents  the  deviations  in  both  drawing  and 
guessing  from  the  most  probable  number  (100%),  the  deviations  are 
definitely  greater  in  the  guessing  than  in  the  drawing.  Accepting  the 
latter  as  empirical  probability,  deviations  greater  than  20%  of  the  most 
probable  number    (made  on  the   Five  of  Hearts)   indicate  some  extra- 


INFLUENCE  OF   MENTAL   HABIT  UPON   JUDGMENT 


279 


chance  cause.  According  to  Table  XLI,68  the  limit  of  chance  is  .66  of 
the  number  of  experiments,  or  26.4%  of  the  most  probable  number.  It 
is  certain  that  the  Four  and  the  Five  of  Hearts  have  been  preferred  and 
that  the  Ace  of  Clubs  and  the  Ten  of  Spades  have  been  avoided,  by 
reason  of  mental  habit;  and  it  is  more  than  probable  that  the  general 
habit  of  favoring  the  intermediate  digits  and  avoiding  the  terminal  digits 
has  influenced  the  guessing  of  the  ten  cards  in  each  of  the  four  suits, 
as  may  be  seen  in  the  approximate  conformity  of  deviations  on  the  ten 
cards  under  the  respective  suits.  Much  of  the  general  preference  for 
particular  cards  must  therefore  be  attributed  to  the  general  preference 
for  the  intermediate  digits. 

There  was,  however,  some  influence  of  mental  habit  upon  the  guess- 
ing of  particular  cards.    If  we  tabulate  the  number  of  times  each  of  the 

Hearts  Diamonds  Cluis  Spade.3 

DrawlTK) 


100% 


z  3  *■  s  b   r  e  9  10  1   z  3  *  s  «  7 


9  10  /  t  i  *  *  *   7»»  "•  1  iy*J*rae  " 


Guesstny 


/Z34S6769/0/ 


L    J   4-    S   6    T   8    9  10    /    L    3    4-   S   6    7    &    9  /O 


2.     3    +    S    6     T    a     9  to 


Plate   XXXVIII.— Deviations    from    Probability   in   the   frequency   the    respective 
individual  cards  were  drawn  and  guessed.     100  reagents.     10,000  cases. 

100  reagents  guessed  each  of  the  forty  cards,  and  aggregate  all  the 
values,  we  get  the  distribution  shown  (by  the  broken  line)  in  Plate 
XXXIX,  which  also  presents  the  distribution-curves  of  the  drawing 
and  of  theoretical  probability.  The  curve  of  guesses  spreads  beyond  the 
curves  of  empirical  and  theoretical  probability.     About  twice  as  many 

««  Supra,  p.  89. 


280  MENTAL  HABIT 

cards  were  avoided  altogether  (abscissa  o)  as  chance  allows;  and  many 
more  cards  were  guessed  over  five  times  in  ioo  guesses  than  one  would 
expect  by  chance.  One  reagent  guessed  the  Ace  of  Clubs  17  times  and 
the  Ace  of  Diamonds  19  times,- — making  over  a  third  of  his  100  guesses 
on  but  two  of  the  forty  cards ;  another  guessed  the  Six  of  Clubs  19  times 
and  the  Nine  of  Hearts  11  times;  one  guessed  the  Three  of  Spades  18 
times,  and  another  the  Four  of  Spades  15  times.  There  were  twenty-five 
cases  of  guessing  a  card  10  or  more  times.  Of  these,  the  Ace  of 
Diamonds,  the  Three  of  Spades,  and  the  Six  of  Clubs  were  preferred  by 
three  reagents;  the  Ace  of  Hearts,  the  Three  of  Hearts,  the  Six  of 
Diamonds,  and  the  Four  of  Spades  were  preferred  by  two  reagents ;  the 
rest  of  the  preferences  were  individual  cards  of  all  suits.  There  is  almost 
no  general  agreement  in  the  preferences ;  but,  as  may  be  estimated  from 
the  distribution-curves,  the  number  of  guesses  controlled  by  mental  habit 


K 

!  \ 


i\Xx-/x\ 


2         3  4  5*         6  7        6  9        10    10        11        12        13        14       15        16         17       18        19      20 

Plate   XXXIX.— Distribution   of   the    Number   of   Times   an   individual   card   was 

drawn  (solid  line)  or  guessed  (broken  line)  in  ioo  experiments. 

ioo  reagents.    4000  cases. 

The  theoretically  probable  distribution  is  shown  by  the  smooth  curve. 

is  so  large  that  almost  all  of  the  reagents  would  be  necessary  to  con- 
tribute them.  Examination  of  the  tabulations  of  the  guesses  of  the  in- 
dividual reagents  verifies  this  deduction.     Mental  habit  was  general. 

Mental  habit  also  influences  the  guessing  of  letters.  In  some  ex- 
periments conducted  by  the  writer  several  years  ago  with  the  tachisto- 
scope,  seven  reagents  failed  to  perceive  a  letter  (a  consonant)  shown 
among  others  and  were  obliged  to  guess  380  times.  The  average  number 
of  guesses  per  letter  would  be  18;  but  Q,  W ,  and  Z  were  not  guessed 
over  10  times,  while  R,  S,  and  T  were  each  guessed  28  or  29  times. 


INFLUENCE  OF  MENTAL   HABIT  UPON   JUDGMENT  281 

Each  of  three  of  the  reagents  failed  to  guess  two  letters  and  two  avoided 
a  single  letter.  Individual  preferences  here  also  varied  greatly :  One 
reagent  preferred  D,  one  H,  one  K,  one  N ;  two  reagents  preferred  L, 
two  R,  two  S,  and  two  T. 

A  few  other  mental  habits  which  influence  judgment  are  worthy  of 
notice  here,  especially  since  their  operation  is  clearly  unconscious  and 
involuntary.  They  are  the  "constant  errors"  found,  and  reckoned  with, 
in  pyschological  investigation.  We  can  illustrate  them  by  selecting  but 
one  type  of  experiment, — that  of  "stimulus  comparison."  That  such 
"errors"  may  have  practical  importance  beyond  the  psychological  lab- 
oratory is  seen  from  the  early  difficulties  encountered  by  the  astronomer 
when  he  sought  by  photometric  methods  to  determine  the  relative  bright- 
ness of  the  stars.69  Many  observations  had  to  be  discarded  because  it 
was  found  that  it  makes  a  difference  to  the  observer  whether  the  image 
of  the  estimated  star  is  to  the  right  or  to  the  left  of  the  image  of  the 
Pole-star.  Correction  was  made  by  duplicating  the  observations  after  the 
two  images  were  reversed  in  their  relative  positions.  This  is  the  so-called 
"space-error."  When  the  two  stimuli  are  compared  not  simultaneously, 
but  one  after  the  other,  there  is  a  corresponding  "time-error."  Assuming 
that  the  "Method  of  Right  and  Wrong  Cases,  or  Constant  Differences," 
is  employed  in  stimulus  comparison,  there  will  be  fewer  right  judgments 
if  the  norm  comes  after  the  variable — this  error  is  called  the  "general 
tendency  of  judgment."  Then,  with  a  given  temporal  order  of  norm  and 
variable,  for  some  observers  there  will  be  fewer  right  judgments  when 
the  norm  is  greater  than  the  variable,  and  for  others  when  it  is  less  than 
the  variable — the  so-called  influence  of  "type."  70  Without  mentioning  an 
equal  number  of  the  more  variable  "errors,"  we  may,  perhaps,  close  this 
passing  reference  with  the  assurance  that  the  reader  will  appreciate  the 
fact  that  these  "errors"  which  tax  the  ingenuity  of  the  psychologists  to 
eliminate,  are  unconscious  influences  upon  judgment. 

Explanatory  Considerations. 

Although  it  is  of  but  secondary  interest  to  know  why  we  have  men- 
tal habits  after  we  know  that  we  have  them,  a  brief  consideration  of  some 
of  their  causes  may  add  somewhat  to  the  cogency  of  the  evidence  ad- 


69  Vide,  Annals  of  the  Astronomical  Observatory  at  Harvard  College,  n  :  222 ; 
14 : 4,  6. 

70  For  a  good  illustration  of  these  errors,  vide,  F.  Angell's  review  of  "Zur 
Analyse  der  Unterschiedsempfindlichkeit  von  Lillien  J.  Martin  und  G.  E.  Miiller, 
Leipzig,  1899,"  in  the  Am.  Jr.  Psychology,  1900,  11:266-7. 


282  MENTAL  HABIT 

duced  to  establish  them,  by  way  of  making  them  more  reasonable  than 
they  appear  to  the  layman  to  be. 

Professor  Dresslar,  in  his  investigation  7l  with  875  young  men  and 
women  who  were  attending  the  State  Normal  schools  in  preparation  for 
teaching  in  the  schools  of  California,  conducted  for  the  purpose  of  learn- 
ing the  extent  of  their  belief  in  superstitions,  found  in  the  potent  super- 
stitions connected  with  numbers  so  great  a  preference  for  the  odd  num- 
bers, particularly  3  and  7,  that  he  was  constrained  to  say : 

These  figures  lead  us  to  expect  to  find  more  than  80%  of  all  superstitions, 
referring  to  numbers,  making  use  of  3,  7,  9,  or  13.  These,  then,  can  with  propriety 
be  designated  as  the  numbers  especially  appropriated  by  the  mind  to  express  and 
embody  superstitious  notions,     (p.  195). 

And  the  original  choice  of  these  numbers  he  ascribes  to  a  natural  mental 
bias: 

The  general  unconscious  preference  for  odd  numbers  72  is  a  mental  bias  de- 
veloped out  of  conditions  imposed  upon  external  nature  by  the  force  of  gravita- 
tion,    (p.  204). 

In  order  for  a  free  physical  body  to  maintain  a  stable  position  it  must 
have  at  least  three  points  of  support.  In  the  natural  process  of  de- 
ductive reasoning  the  major  and  minor  premises  either  hold  the  judg- 
ment in  suspense  or  lead  directly  to  a  conclusion  (the  third  component  of 
the  syllogism).  The  number  3  becomes  a  satisfying  numerical  concept. 
Professor  San  ford  says: 

An  explanation  of  number-preferences,  if  one  is  attempted,  must  take  several 
things  into  account.  First  and  most  important  of  these  is  that  number  preferences 
— so  far  at  least  as  they  can  be  judged  by  mass  returns — are  not  constant,  but 
vary  with  the  conditions  under  which  the  numbers  are  used.  The  odd  numbers 
are  preferred  in  the  unit's  place  in  "guessing  contests,"  but  the  even  (next  after 
the  s's  and  10's)  in  the  estimation  of  ages,  and  two  years  is  the  most  frequent 
criminal  sentence.  Under  some  conditions  the  landmarks  of  the  decimal  system  (5, 
10,  15,  20,  etc.)  would  be  prominent;  under  others  those  of  the  duodecimal  sys- 
tem [e.  g.,  criminal  sentences  in  months].73  .  .  .  Number  preferences  should  be  ex- 
plained, therefore,  in  connection  with  the  special  circumstances  under  which  they 
are  exhibited,     (p.  398-9). 

I    TT 

71  Fletcher  B.  Dresslar:     Superstition  and  Education.     Berkeley   (California), 

University    Press,    1907.      (There   was   full   or  partial   belief   in  45%   of  the   7176 
recorded  superstitions.) 

72  Vide,  Curve  A,  in  Plate  XXVIII,  supra,  p.  266. 
«  Vide,  Plate  XVIII,  supra,  p.  239. 


INFLUENCE  OF  MENTAL  HABIT  UPON   JUDGMENT  283 

He  thinks  that  number-superstitions  do  not  explain  number-preferences 
but  that  both  "spring  from  a  similar  psychical  condition." 

There  must  be  something  peculiar  about  a  number  to  which  superstition  or 
symbolic  meaning  may  cling;  it  must  somehow  stand  out  in  consciousness.  The 
emphasizing  feature  may  be  something  in  the  numerical  relations  themselves  (as 
30  is  the  sum  of  the  first  ten  numbers  of  the  series,  to  use  one  of  Dresslar's  in- 
stances), or  it  may  be  some  relation  in  nature,  as  man's  having  five  fingers  on  each 
hand,  or  the  quarter  of  the  lunar  month  being  seven  days,  or  perhaps  some  purely 
accidental  relation — but  whatever  its  nature,  it  must  make  the  number  prominent 
in  consciousness  before  it  can  become  a  matter  of  superstitious  regard.  Now  in 
such  guessing  as  we  have  been  considering,  mere  prominence  in  consciousness,  or 
mere  ease  of  return  to  consciousness,  for  any  cause,  is  sufficient  to  determine  a  pre- 
ponderant frequency  in  the  guessing.  Superstitious  importance  when  once  estab- 
lished may  easily  contribute  to  the  prominence  of  a  number,  and  so  increase  its 
frequency  in  the  records  of  the  guessing,  but  its  influence  is  indirect  and  much 
modified  by  other  considerations,  (p.  399.)  ...  All  the  odd  numbers  stand  out 
above  the  even  for  purely  numerical  reasons.  They  present  a  certain  solidity  be- 
cause they  are  not  divisible  by  two,  and  among  the  odd  numbers  3  and  7  over-top 
the  rest;  for  9  is  not  prime,  5  is  common  and  easy  from  its  connection  with  the 
decimal  system,  and  1  from  its  simplicity  and  complete  familiarity.  To  such  orig- 
inal means  of  emphasis  as  this  is  added  the  repetition  and  fixation  in  attention  due 
to  superstitious  or  symbolic  conceptions,  and  all  combine  to  determine  the  other- 
wise undetermined  digits  in  the  number  guessed.74     (pp.  399-400). 

Although  the  stubborn,  refractory  nature  of  the  prime  numbers  is 
no  doubt  responsible  for  the  emphasis  which  they  enjoy  in  the  traditional 
consciousness,  to  the  individual  laboring  over  his  arithmetic  they  become 
discriminated  before  tradition  becomes  operative.  And  the  various  digits 
take  upon  themselves,  in  the  individual  consciousness,  varying  character- 
istics which  must  be  largely  determinative  in  establishing  mental  habit 
with  respect  to  their  use. 

Some  individuals  have  chromsesthesia,  or  other  synaesthesias,  for 
names,  letters,  and  numbers,75  »'.  e.,  names,  letters,  or  numbers  are  seen  or 
heard  as  colored,  and  the  affective  value  of  the  color  would  determine 
mental  habit  with  respect  to  them.  With  respect  to  names,  Professor 
Dresslar  once  asked  a  subject  whether  the  associated  colors  influenced 
her  preference,  and  received  the  following  reply :  "They  do.  I  do  not 
like  those  names  associated  with  the  reds.     I  like  bluish  names    .  .  ."  76 


"Sanford:  On  the  guessing  of  numbers.  American  Journal  of  Psychology, 
1903,  14:383-401. 

76  Cf.,  Galton :  Enquiries.  1883,  p.  149 ;  Titchener :  Text-book,  p.  195 ; 
American  Journal  of  Psychology,  11: 377;    18:341. 

76  Dresslar:  Are  Chroma;sthesias  variable?  American  Journal  of  Psychology, 
1003,  14:380. 


284  MENTAL  HABIT 

But  since  synesthesia  is'  probably  not  more  common  among  people  than 
partial  color-blindness,  it  cannot  be  a  large  determinant  of  number  pref- 
erences. But,  if,  as  Titchener  suspects,77  synsesthetic  experiences  are  not 
to  be  traced  back  to  associations  formed  in  childhood,  but  are  due  to  some 
anatomical  or  functional  peculiarity  of  the  individual's  nervous  system, 
they  are  to  be  noticed  as  a  distinct  factor  in  the  determination  of  mental 
habits. 

The  more   frequent  determining  factors  are  likely  to  be  the  asso- 
ciations built  up  in  the  individual's  experience.     To  illustrate,  the  writer- 
still  has  a  very  definite  scale  or  system  of  mental  attitudes  which  the 
various  digits  arouse ;    and  these  are  directly  consequent  upon  the  num- 
ber-experiences of  his  childhood :  2,  4,  and  8  are  relatives,  they  are  kindly 
and  responsive ;    they  retain  some  vestiges  of  attributes  with  which  they 
were  once  more  definitely  endowed ;    they  are  republicans,  for  example, 
and  church-goers,  as  the  intimate  friends  of  his  family  were.     On  the 
other  hand,  3,  6,  and  p  are  strangers,  somewhat  hostile,  and  troublesome ; 
they  are  democrats,  and  they  run  their  harvesters  on  Sunday;    but  6 
fraternizes  with  friends  and  is  to  be  tolerated  although  the  role  it  plays 
in  the  multiplication  table  is  against  it.    5  is  a  lucky  acquaintance  that  is 
too  seldom  met,  and  belongs  to  the  family  of  the  tens  and  hundreds.   7  is 
the  Hun  of  the  lot ;  frustrates  almost  every  enterprise  that  involves  it.    1, 
also,  is  individual,  is  likely,  but  really  doesn't  count  much,     o  is  a  quan- 
dary ;    shares  a  rival  claim  with  /  for  first  place  in  the  series ;    doesn't 
count  in  addition  but  has  a  deadly  effect  in  multiplication.     4  becomes 
distinguished ;   it  is  2  -+-  2,  2  X  <?,  and  2~ ;   9  stands  next  in  dignity  as  J2. 
/,  j,  and  7  have  also  undergone  change  owing  to  associations  in  addition 
to  those  derived  from  ease  of  arithmetical  manipulation :    1  is  the  symbol 
of  unity;   it  is  regal,  self-contained,  final;    from  it  all  numbers  take  their 
origin,  and  to  it  they  all,  at  n°,  return.     3  has  been  advanced  by  many 
triune    corporations — the    Trinity,    the   triumvirate,    the    syllogism ;     by 
structural  associations — the  rigidity  of  the  triangle,  and  of  the  three  tent- 
poles;    by  social  facts — the  minimum  number  of  branches  of  a  govern- 
ment, or  of  members  of  a  family.    7  has  come  up  through  the  plagues  of 
Egypt  and  the  lean  years,  Jacob's  service  and  Nebuchadnezzar's  mad- 
ness, Rome's  topography  and  the  Wonders  of  the  World,  not  to  speak  of 
the  wise  or  the  blind  men,  the  deadly  sins  or  the  ages  of  man,  or  the 
colors  in  the  spectrum  or  the  notes  in  the  musical  scale,  a  cosmopolitan 
and   fascinating  Othello ;    and  he   has  through   conspiracy  with   4  and 


"Titchener:     A  Text-Book  of  Psychology,  191 1,  p.  197. 


INFLUENCE  OF  MENTAL  HABIT  UPON   JUDGMENT  285 

Juno,  effected  a  perpetual  hebdomadal  memorial  which  is  published  all 
over  Christendom  in  the  calendar.  Thus  were  the  digits  first  personified, 
and  later  subjected  to  various  influences;  preferences  can  scarcely  be  ex- 
pected to  escape  the  influence  of  these  early  associations. 

Acquired  associations  may  also  determine  preferences  for  letters, 
through  connection  with  names,  or  by  reason  of  aesthetic  evaluation  of 
form ;  for  cards,  through  value  in  play.  In  any  case,  the  associations 
are  likely  to  be  many,  and  which  one  becomes  determinative  upon  any 
given  occasion  depends  upon  a  multitude  of  factors  a  discussion  of  which 
would  involve  one  of  the  most  complex  chapters  in  psychology — on  the 
incentives  to,  and  liability  of,  reproduction.78  In  many  cases,  owing  to 
like  training,  mental  habits  are  similar,  and,  in  guessing,  work  for  coin- 
cidence. In  general,  it  has  been  said,  we  are  mental  communists ;  pre- 
occupied upon  the  same  theme,  the  ideas  which  arise  in  the  minds  of 
friends  for  expression  are  similar,  often  identical.  It  is,  of  course,  owing 
to  the  fact  that  human  minds  are  similarly  constituted  that  a  science  of 
psychology  is  possible.  It  is  owing  to  the  same  fact  that  communication 
is  possible  and  that  language  has  developed. 

Some  of  the  experimental  results  of  the  word-reaction  test  are  perti- 
nent, in  exemplifying  psychical  communism,  \liumb  and  Marbe  have 
shown  that  when  a  large  number  of  persons  make  a  word-reaction  to  a 
given  stimulus-word  the  responses  are  very  often  identical.7^  And  Rein- 
hold  has  shown  that  the  agreement  in  responses  of  school  children  to 
given  stimulus-words  increases  with  age  or  school-grade.80  Kent  and 
Rosanoff,  who  sought  characteristic  differences  between  the  responses  of 
normal  persons  and  the  responses  of  abnormal  subjects,  gave  ioo  stim- 
ulus-words to  iooo  normal  persons  in  order  to  get  normal  frequency- 
tables  of  the  responses  to  each  word. 

The  total  number  of  different  words  elicited  in  response  to  any  stimulus  word 
is  limited,  varying  from  two  hundred  and  eighty  words  in  response  to  anger  to 
seventy-two  words  in  response  to  needle.  Furthermore,  for  the  great  majority  of 
subjects  the  limits  are  still  narrower;  to  take  a  striking  instance,  in  response  to 
dark  eight  hundred  subjects  gave  one  or  another  of  the  following  seven  words: 
light,  night,  black,  color,  room,  bright,  gloomy;  while  only  two  hundred  gave  re- 
actions other  than  these  words;  and  only  seventy  subjects,  out  of  the  total  num- 
ber of  one  thousand,  gave  reactions  which  were  not  given  by  any  other  subject, 
(p.  8  of  reprint). 

™  Vide,  Kiilpe :     Outlines  of  Psychology,  iooi,  pp.  196  ff. 

79  Thumb  and  Marbe :  Experimented  Untersuchungen  iiber  die  psychol- 
ogischen  Grundlagen  der  sprachlichen  Analogiebildung.     Leipzig,  1901,  pp.  17  ff- 

so  Ferdinand  Reinhold :  Beitrage  zur  Assoziationslehre  auf  grund  von  Mass- 
enversuchen.     Zeitschrift  fur  Psychologie,  1910,  54 :  184. 


286  MENTAL  HABIT 

Their  general  conclusion  was : 

On  a  general  survey  of  the  whole  mass  of  material  which  forms  the  basis  of 
the  first  part  of  this  study,  we  are  led  to  observe  that  the  one  tendency  which  ap- 
pears to  be  almost  universal  among  normal  persons  is  the  tendency  to  give  in  re- 
sponse to  any  stimulus  word  one  or  another  of  a  small  group  of  common  reactions. 

(P-  14)- 

It  appears  from  the  pathological  material  now  on  hand  that  this  tendency  is 
greatly  weakened  in  some  cases  of  mental  disease.  Many  patients  have  given  more 
than  so  per  cent  of  individual  reactions.81     (p.  14). 

This  psychical  communism,  then,  develops  gradually  in  the  experi- 
ence of  the  child,  is  a  striking  characteristic  of  normal  adults,  and  is  im- 
paired by  certain  kinds  of  mental  disease.  It  molds  experience  in  like 
forms,  effects  common  associations,  common  scales  of  evaluation,  com- 
mon preferences  ;  it  explains  why  mental  habits  are  often  common.  But 
the  psychical  factors  upon  which  mental  habit  rests  are  not  communistic ; 
they  are  individual:  the  material  of  experience  and  the  incentives  to, 
and  the  liability  of,  its  reproduction.  This  explains  the  large  individual 
variation  in  mental  habits.  Were  reproduction  not  variable  and  selec- 
tive, with  respect  to  the  various  materials  of  experience,  mental  habit 
would  not  be  shown  in  such  judgments  as  we  have  examined.  Individual 
variation  in  this  psychical  factor  accounts  for  the  individual  variation  in 
the  extent  to  which  judgment  is  influenced  by  mental  habit. 

It  is,  perhaps,  reasonable,  then,  to  expect  the  influence  of  mental 
habit  upon  all  judgments  delivered  upon  matters  which  permit  a  fairly 
wide  range  of  error  (star  magnitudes,  criminal  sentence,  age  of  the 
American  living  or  of  the  Latin  dead,  students'  grades,  cloudiness  at 
Bremen,  etc. )  and  upon  matters  which  permit  a  still  wider  range  of 
error  (seeds  in  an  uncut  monster  squash,  or  beans  in  a  5-pint  bottle).  The 
typical  "personal  scale"  of  the  systematic  errors  enforced  by  mental 
habit  upon  judgment  of  these  matters  has  been  found. 

Will  the  same  explanation  hold  for  the  equation  decimate,  the  "per- 
sonal scale"  found  in  judgments  of  the  decimal  divisions  of  small  tem- 
poral and  spatial  magnitudes?  Are  the  systematic  errors  in  estimating 
the  tenths  of  a  degree  on  a  thermometer,  calibrated  for  each  degree  only, 
dependent  upon  number-preference,  upon  the  unequal  liability  of  the  va- 
rious tenths  to  come  to  mind  ?  This  sort  of  influence  we  have  found  to 
exercise  the  greater  control  over  judgment  in  situations  which  permit  the 
wider  ranges  of  error;  as  in  estimating  a  student's  merit  in  a  percentile 
grade,  which,  because  the  least  discriminable  values  lie  about  8%  apart, 


81  Grace  Helen  Kent  and  A.  J.  Rosanoff :     A  study  of  association  in  insanity. 
Am.  Jr.  of  Insanity,  1910,  67:37-96,  317-390. 


INFLUENCE  OF   MENTAL  HABIT  UPON  JUDGMENT  287 

permits  a  "probable  error"  of  ±4%.     The  estimate  is  determined  by  the 
greater  liability  of  one  of  the  unit's  digits  over  the  neighboring  seven 
digits  to  come  into  consciousness.    The  decimal  divisions  of  a  degree  on 
the  thermometer-scale,  however,  will  not  permit  so  wide  a  range  of  error. 
And  in  so  far  as  this  range  is  decreased  is  the  opportunity  for  number- 
preference  decreased.     The  range  of  the  "probable  error"  in  the  ther- 
mometric  observations  reported  from  Dundee   (for  the  distribution  see 
Plate  XXI,  Curve  D)S2  is  only  .54  of  a  decimal  part  of  a  degree;    and 
the  range  on  the  scale  at  the  calibration  upon  which  the  0  judgments 
were  made  is  1.75  of  a  decimal  part.     Lewitzky,83  in  applying  Zinger's 
mass  correction  which  he   found  in  high  agreement  with  Gonnessiat's, 
to  the  transit-observations  of  Boquet's  observers,84  learned  that  for  some 
of  the  more  neglected  tenths  the  systematic  error  for  some  of  the  ob- 
servers amounted  to  a  full  tenth  of  a  second.    Obviously,  since  the  range 
of  error  is  not  greater  than  a  decimal  part,  the  "personal  scale"  cannot 
be  caused  by  number-preference.     A  good  proof  that  the  large  error  on 
0  is  not  caused  by  a  preference  for  a  round  number  lies  in  the  fact  that 
when   instruments   are   calibrated   on   decimal   parts   of   a   degree   those 
decimal  parts  are  as  often    favored  as  0  is.     Curves  D  and  E,  Plate 
XXVI,85  illustrate  this  with  respect  to  the  half-second  standard  furnished 
by  clock-strokes ;    and  Curves  /  and  K,  in  the  same  Plate,  with  respect 
to  the  .5°  calibration  on  the  thermometer.     With  the  .2°  calibration  on 
the  thermometer  we  get  the  distributions  shown  in  Curves  A,  B,  C,  and 
D,  Plate  XL.86    Again,  when  the  estimates  are  made  in  tenths  and  half- 
tenths  of  spaces  on  record-sheets  (Libellen)  the  distributions  are  not  es- 
sentially different  from  those  of  estimations  made  in  tenths  only,  as  may 
be  seen  from  Curves  E  and  F  which  are  drawn  from  data  presented  by 
Meissner.87     The  large  positive  systematic  errors  fall  upon  the  calibra- 
tions, regardless  of  what  decimal  divisions  are  calibrated,  and  of  whether 
the  estimations  are  made  in  tenths  or  half-tenths.     The  fact  is  that  ob- 
servers have  a   "personal  scale"  which   is  not  imposed  upon  them  by 


82  Supra,  p.  251. 

83  Astronomische  Nachrichten,   1890,   125:75-6. 

84  Vide,  Curves  A,  B,  C,  Plate  XXIV,  p.  257. 
86  Supra,  p.  261. 

86  These  distributions  are  reported  by  Hellmann  (op.  cit.,  p.  286)  for  Wasser- 
leben,  Potsdam,  Celle,  and  Pawlowsk.  The  observations  in  each  case,  except  for 
Celle,  cover  a  period  of  ten  years  and  number  10,956.  For  Celle,  the  period 
covered  is  20  years,  and  the  observations  number  21,912.  At  this  last  station  the 
observations  were  made  by  a  single  observer.  At  Pawlowsk  the  observers  were 
said  to  be  the  more  skilled. 

87  Op.  cit.,  pp.  139-142.  Curve  E  represents  7898  observations  made  by  W. ; 
Curve  F,  6552  made  by  K. 


288 


MENTAL  HABIT 


number-preference,  and  which  is  at  variance  with  the  objective  scale 
which  they  endeavor  to  adopt.  For  the  observers  on  Pikes  Peak,88  for 
example,  the  "personal  scale"  varies  from  the  objective  scale  as  is  shown 
below : 

Objective  Scale       012S4567890 


Personal  Scale 


0 


3  4 


67      8 


Fig.  4. —  A  comparison  of  the  objective  with  the  "personal  scale"  of  the 

meteorological  observers  on  Pikes  Peak.     The  mid-points 

of  the  0  divisions  are  in  apposition. 

On  the  decimal  divisions  of  /  and  5  only  is  there  no  considerable 
error.  On  division  6  only  a  quarter  of  the  expected  number  of  estimates 
have  fallen ;   on  0,  2.76  times  the  expected  number.    The  distribution  of 


160- 

\a 

Curves   A  and  B 

A       /  \       A       / 
'  \     I  A\      /  *  \      / 

1          /■ 

100  _ 

b\       / 

W         \/        \  7 

\  v/ 

BO. 

0  . 

01234667890         0123466-769   0 


Curves  C  and  D 

ICO  _ 

100  . 

V      Am       /a\ 

1  ' 

c  Vxij 
\  / 

\  /      W     V*  1 

w/ 

60. 

0 

Plate  XL. —  Curves  showing  the  Dependence  of  the  'equation  decimale'  upon  cali- 
Curve         bration-marks,  and  its  independence  of  fractionation  of  decimal  estimates. 

A.  .2°  Thermometric  observations  at  Wasserleben.  10,956  cases.  (Hellman.) 

B.  "  "  "  "  Potsdam.  10,956 
C      "              "                        "           "  Celle.                            21,912 

D.  "  "  "  "  Pawlowsk.  10,956 

E.  (Libellen)  Estimates  in  tenths  and  half-tenths.  Obs.  W.  7898 

F.  (Libellen)  Estimates  in  tenths  and  half-tenths.   Obs.  K.  6552 

88  Vide,  Curve  A,  Plate  XXI,  p.  251. 


(Meissner.) 


INFLUENCE  OF  MENTAL   HABIT  UPON   JUDGMENT 


289 


the  observations  is  just  such  as  would  be  expected  had  the  observers  held 
the  "personal  scale"  pictured  above  accurately  in  mind  and  employed  it 
without  error. 

The  causes  of  this  mental  habit  are  probably  very  complex,  and  are 
not  all  psychical.     Walter  89  sought  to  determine  whether  it  varied  with 
the  distance  between  the  calibrations,  and  had  500  estimates  made  from 
a  recalibrated  thermometer,  with  each  of  the  following  distances:    0.8, 
1.2,  1.6,  2.0,  2.4,  and  2.8  mm.    The  deviations  on  the  0  were,  per  M,  119, 
45.  32,  55.  68,  84;    and  the  average  deviations:    44.8,  25.7,  26.8,   17.3, 
28.3,  28.8.  This  indicates  that  the  optimal  distance  between  calibrations  is 
2  mm. ;    and  that  the  error  in  the  "personal  scale"  increases  with  a  de- 
parture in  either  direction   from  this  magnitude.     He  pointed  out  that 
instrument-makers  should  be  better  informed,  since  they  commonly  place 
calibrations  so  close  together  as  to  preclude  reliable  reading,  sometimes 
to  the  extreme  of  using  a  third  of  the  space  for  calibration-marks.    The 
calibration-mark  in  any  case  occupies  a  part  of  the  distance  which,  in 
estimating  decimal  parts,   must  be   considered  as  unfilled  space.     The 
physical  fact  of  coincidence  of  the  top  of  the  mercury  with  some  level 
of  the  calibration  would,  consequently,  constitute  one  cause  for  increas- 
ing the  frequency  of  the  0  estimate.    One  psychical  cause  acting  in  con- 
junction with  this  is  the  well-known  tendency  to  convert  "no  difference" 
into  "like"  judgments;90  and  another  is  the  tendency  to  underestimate 
small  magnitudes  in  comparison  with  large  magnitudes,  especially  when 
they  receive  a  disproportionate  degree  of  attention.     To  the  last  cause 
Bauch  91  attributed  the  piling  up  of  estimates  upon  the  terminal  tenths 
which  he  found  in  his  results.    Both  of  these  psychological  causes  would 
also  operate  on  the  .5  division  which  can  be  fairly  accurately  located. 
Four  further  psychical  causes  may  operate  to  disturb  accuracy  in  the 
locating  of  the  .5  point:    (1)   If  the  scale  is  vertical,  owing  to  a  well- 
known  space  illusion,  the  midpoint  is  placed  too  high ;   the  lower  spaces 
of  sensibly  symmetrical  letters,  to  illustrate,  are  larger  than  the  upper 
spaces  as  may  be  seen  if  the  letters  are  inverted —  S  S,    8  8,   (2)  If  the 
scale  is  horizontal,  and  monocular  vision  is  used  as  in  transit-estimation, 
the  external  segment  is  overestimated ;   i.  e.,  with  the  right  eye  the  right 
half  is  overestimated  and  the  mid-point  is  located  too  far  to  the  right. 
(3)  Whether  the  scale  is  vertical  or  horizontal  the  half  of  the  space  be- 
tween calibrations  which  is  intersected  by  the  surface  of  the  mercury  is 

89  Op.  cit.,  pp.  249  ff. 

90  Cf.,  F.   Angell :     On  judgments   of   "like"   in   discrimination   experiments. 
American  Journal  of  Psychology,  1907,  18:253-260. 

91  Op.  Cit.,  p.  219. 


290  MENTAL  HABIT 

likely  to  be  overestimated,  since  an  unfilled  space  seems  less  than  a  filled 
or  a  divided  space  of  the  same  size.92  And  (4)  if  the  mercury-filled  part 
of  the  space  and  the  unfilled  part  differ  greatly  in  shade,  as  black  and 
white,  the  black  segment  is  underestimated.  Feet  or  hands  appear  smaller 
in  black  than  in  white.  This  last  source  of  error  was  noted  by  Walter.93 
If  the  .5  is  mislocated,  the  other  intermediate  divisions  are  disturbed; 
and  the  same  causes  of  error  apply  directly  to  them  also.  Other  psycho- 
logical sources  of  error  which  would  account  for  individual  differences 
in  the  "personal  scale"  refer  to  characteristic  methods  of  making  the 
estimate,  and  have  been  noted  by  the  astronomers.  Hartmann  94  said  that 
observers  differ  in  making  calculation  from  the  first  line,  from  the  sec- 
ond, or  from  the  estimated  middle  of  the  space  between  them.  Gonnes- 
siat 95  noted  that  some  observers  estimate  the  /,  2,  and  J  decimal  divisions 
absolutely,  without  comparison  with  the  complementary  spaces.  And 
Grossmann  96  contended  that  proper  estimation  is  not  based  upon  the 
image  in  the  eye  but  upon  the  sensation  of  the  eye-movement  over  the 
points  of  reference ;  consequently  the  position  of  the  head  is  important, 
since  tortion  must  be  avoided.  Imperfections  of  the  eye,  such  as  asym- 
metry of  the  retina,  astigmatism,  etc.,  are  still  further  causes  of  individual 
variation.  This  brief  resume  of  some  of  the  causes  of  the  "personal 
scale"  may,  perhaps,  suffice  to  indicate  that  the  process  of  estimating 
decimal  parts  of  small  spatial  magnitudes  is  sufficiently  complex  to  per- 
mit the  operation  of  many  factors  of  mental  habit,  without  pursuing  these 
factors  ad  nauseam. 


92  These  three  causes  are  due  to  asymmetry  of  the  eye-muscles.  Cf.,  Wundt : 
Human  and  Animal  Psychology,  1912,  pp.  156  f;  or  Grundziige  der  Physiologischen 
Psychologie,  5te  Auflage,  1902,  vol.  II,  pp.  548  ff. 

93  Op.  cit.,  p.  252. 

94  Op.  cit. 

98  Gonnessiat :  Recherches  sur  les  erreurs  personelles  dans  les  observations  de 
passages.     Bulletin  Astronomique,  1889,  6:471-480. 

96  Op.  cit.,  pp.  157  ff.  Cf.,  Wundt :  Human  and  Animal  Psychology,  1912,  p. 
151- 


APPLICATION    TO    THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 


291 


APPLICATION   OF   MENTAL   HABIT  TO    EXPERIMENTS   IN 
THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE. 

V-The  recognition  of  the  influence  of  mental  habit  upon  judgment  is 
very  important  for  all  those  who  either  conduct  experiments  in  thought- 
transference  or  presume  to  interpret  the  results  of  such  experiments, 
for  the  reason  that,  should  the  conditions  of  experiment  permit  it,  the 
effect  of  common  mental  habits  constitutes  an  extra-chance  cause  which 
the  quantitative  results  would  not  fail  to  show  and  which  might,  conse- 
quently, be  easily  mistaken  for  thought-transference.  The  more  rigid 
the  mathematical  and  statistical  treatment  of  the  data,  the  more  definitely 
would  the  extra-chance  influence  be  revealed  and  the  more  certain  would 
the  error  in  interpretation  be  to  bear  vicious  fruit. 

For  example,  suppose  the  German  reagents  whose  number-prefer- 
ences are  shown  in  Plate  XXXII,  Curve  B,97  were  acting  as  experiment- 
ers, and  our  own  reagents  whose  number-preferences  are  shown  in  Curve 
A  on  the  same  Plate  were  doing  the  guessing,  in  thought-transference  ex- 
periments in  which  the  guesses  were  made  on  the  digits  from  /  to  10, 
and  the  experimenters  chose  at  random  the  digits  to  think  of.     Since 
the  experimenters  think  of  the  intermediate  digits  much  more  often  than 
they  think  of  the  others,  and  the  reagents  guess  much  more  often  those 
same  digits,  it  is  obvious  that  R  guesses  would  be  more  frequent  than 
chance  provides  for.     This  fact  is  more  apparent  if  we  examine  an  ex- 
treme  case.     Suppose   the  experimenters   had  a  preference   for  5  and 
thought  of  it  in  one-half  of  the  experiments,  and  the  reagents  guessed  5 
in  one-half  of  the  experiments,  then  the  chance  of  R  guesses  on  all  the 
digits  would  greatly  exceed  .1,  the  normal  probability  of  a  single  coinci- 
dence; half  of  the  guesses  on  5  would  be  right,  yielding  a  ratio  of  .25  R 
cases ;    and  %  of  the   remainder  would  be  right,  yielding,  say,  .05   R 
cases;   aggregating  .3  R  cases,  an  excess  of  .2  or  20%.    And  this  excess, 
indicating  an  extra-chance  cause,  results  not  from  thought-transference 
but  from  similarity  in  mental  habit  with  respect  to  thinking  of  digits. 
Of  course,  the  influence  of  similar  mental  habits  is  not  so  extreme  as 
here  considered,  but  in  so  far  as  it  is  operative  it  works  for  R  cases.    Be- 
fore determining  the  effect  of  the  influence  when  exerted  in  the  degree 
shown  in  the  curves  referred  to  above,  it  may  be  well  to  examine  a  parallel 
case  which  is  perhaps  clearer  than  a  thought-transference  experiment. 


\ 


97  Supra,  p.  273. 


292  MENTAL  HABIT 

From  it  we  can  derive  a  formula  that  will  be  applicable  to  the  digit- 
guessing. 

Let  us  illustrate  the  mathematical  situation  with  the  throws  of  two 
dice.  If  they  are  perfect  homogeneous  cubes,  each  face  has  an  equal 
chance  with  any  other  of  being  thrown,  and,  since  there  are  six  faces, 
that  chance  is  %  of  the  total  number  of  throws.  In  the  throws  of  die 
a,  then,  the  "probability  of  occurrence"  of  the  ace  is  % ;  of  die  b  also 
%.  If  dice  a  and  b  are  thrown  together  the  probability  of  getting  the  ace 
with  both  is  p  X  p,  or  %  X  %  =  He  =  -0278.  Should  the  actual  num- 
ber of  coincidences  obtained  in  a  series  of  throws  exceed  this  ratio  by  an 
amount  greater  than  the  deviation  allowed  by  the  theory  of  probability, 
an  extra-chance  cause  working  for  the  coincidence  of  the  aces  would  be 
demonstrated.  Suppose  the  dice  are  "loaded"  so  that  the  probability  of 
occurrence  of  the  ace  is  greater,  say  %  for  each  die ;  then,  the  probabil- 
ity of  coincidence  would  be  %5,  and  in  a  series  of  throws  of  sufficient 
length  an  extra-chance  cause  would  be  demonstrated. 

If  we  are  interested  in  all  of  the  coincidences,  as  we  are  in  thought- 
transference  experiments,  then  the  probability  of  coincidence  would  be 
the  sum  of  the  chances  for  the  coincidence  of  the  respective  six  faces; 
y36  +  %«  +  He  +  %e  +  Ka  +  Yse  —  %e  =  %  =  167.  But  if  the  dice 
are  similarly  loaded  so  that  a  long  series  of  throws  shows,  in  per  cent,  the 
following  occurrences  of  the  respective  faces 

Face       1  2         3         4         5         6 

Die        a        10        12        27  6        22        23 

"  b        12        13        26  7        21        21 

then  the  probability  of  coincidence  is  definitely  increased:  If  the  respec- 
tive probabilities  of  the  occurrence  of  the  ace  with  dice  a  and  b  may  be 
represented  by  pt  and  p2,  then  p1  =  .lO  and  />,  =  .12,  and  the  probability 
of  occurrence  of  a  coincidence  of  aces  is  p1p2  =  .10  X  .12  =.0120,  in- 
stead of  .0278 ;  and  of  the  3-spot  />,/>»  =  .0702.  A  summation  of  the  six 
pxp2  values  gives,  for  all  the  coincidences,  .1965  instead  of  .167,  indicating 
a  theoretical  extra-chance  value  of  .1965  —  .167  =  .0295,  or  about  3%.98 
This  is  the  effect  of  the  loading  of  the  dice. 


98  Generalizing,  we  may  derive  a  formula  for  determining  the  theoretical 
amount  of  such  an  extra-chance  cause  resulting  from  loaded  dice,  or  from  the 
influence  of  mental  habit  in  guessing,  and  displaying  itself  in  the  unequal  chances 
of  the  single  events : 

x  =  2(p1p2)—p, 

in  which  p  and  p0  are  the  respective  probabilities  of  the  occurrence  of  a  given 
event  (die-spot  1  or  i  or  3,  etc.)  in  the  two  series,  2  is  the  sign  of  summation, 
and  p  is  the  probability  of  occurrence  of  a  single  event  under  the  condition  that 
all  the  events  have  equal  chances. 


APPLICATION    TO   THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE  293 

Recurring  to  the  digit-guessing,  we  find  by  the  use  of  the  formula 
just  derived  that  the  theoretical  ratio  of  R  guesses  would  be  .115,  the 
influence  of  mental  habit,  consequently,  amounting  to  .115  —  .1  =  .015  or 
1.5%.  This  illustrates  the  role  that  a  fairly  general  mental  habit  may 
play  in  thought-transference  experiments.  But  we  have  learned  that  in- 
dividuals vary  greatly  in  their  digit-preferences,  and,  consequently,  we 
might  expect  in  a  considerable  number  of  sets  of  experiments,  made 
under  the  conditions  assumed  above,  to  find  the  results  of  some  reagents 
indicating  a  considerable  extra-chance  cause  just  because  their  strong 
preferences  chanced  to  agree  with  those  of  their  experimenters. 

For  example,  we  see  in  the  lower  part  of  Plate  XXXI  "  that  Re- 
agents 9  and  44  show  some  agreement  in  their  number  preferences,  and 
Reagents  38  and  45  also.  By  the  application  of  our  formula  we  find  that 
for  the  former  pair  the  amount  of  influence  toward  R  cases  would  be 
.029,  or  3%,  and  for  the  latter,  .02  or  2%,  should  these  pairs  work  to- 
gether in  experiments  that  permit  the  mental  habits  of  both  members  to 
operate. 

Like  preferences  for  individual  cards  would  in  a  similar  way  con- 
tribute an  extra-chance  influence  for  R  cases.  For  example,  Reagents 
65  and  67,  in  the  card-guessing  experiments  have  some  strong  prefer- 
ences in  common.  Had  either  of  them  acted  as  experimenter  and  the 
other  as  reagent,  and  had  the  card  to  be  thought  of  been  selected  at  ran- 
dom by  the  experimenter,  not  drawn  from  a  shuffled  pack,  the  amount 
of  extra-chance  influence  as  found  by  application  of  our  formula  would 
have  been  .0283  or  2.8%,  which  is  larger  than  the  probability  of  a  single 
occurrence  of  an  R  case  (2.5%). 

It  must  be  recognized,  then,  that  whenever  the  experimenter  ( agent  1 
selects  at  random  one  of  a  definite  series  of  things  to  think  of,  instead 
of  drawing  it  by  chance,  the  unconscious  influence  of  mental  habit  may 
result  in  the  expression  of  preferences  which,  if  in  agreement  with  those 
of  the  reagent  likewise  induced,  constitute  an  extra-chance  cause  work- 
ing for  R  cases. 

Statistical  treatment  may,  indeed,  remove  the  cause  by  such  an  ar- 
tificial selection  of  the  data  as  removes  the  operation  of  the  agent's  pref- 
erences ;100  but  this  can  be  done  by  a  reader  only  when,  as  is  not  usual, 


»»  Supra,  p.  272. 

100  This  could  be  done  by  counting  the  R  cases  in  an  equal  number  of  guesses 
on  each  of  the  numbers  or  cards,  care  being  taken  to  take  every  guess  on  each 
number  or  card  from  the  beginning  of  the  series  until  the  quota  is  obtained;  or, 
by  dividing  the  number  of  R  cases  on  each  card  guessed  by  the  number  of  guesses 
made  on  it,  reducing  to  a  common  denominator,  and  adding. 


294  MENTAL  HABIT 

the  original  series  of  data  are  published.  Obviously  the  admission  of  the 
influence  of  mental  habit  into  thought-transference  experiments  is  a  seri- 
ous error. 

But,  it  is  worth  noting,  while  we  have  a  statistical  measure  of  this 
extra-chance  influence  before  us,  this  error  is  not  so  great  as  some  critics 
intimate.  In  order  for  the  above  deviation  of  +  2.8%  in  R  cases  on  the 
Card,  to  be  certainly  established  as  an  extra-chance  cause,  the  number  of 
experiments  upon  which  the  per  cent  is  based  must  be  about  6oo.101 
And  in  order  for  the  3%,  found  above  as  a  measure  of  the  influence  of 
mental  habit  in  digit-guessing,  to  be  satisfactorily  demonstrated  the  num- 
ber of  experiments  would  have  to  be  2000.102  These  figures  serve  to 
show  that  even  when  we  select  from  our  data  the  cases  of  greatest  sim- 
ilarity between  the  mental  habits  that  have  influenced  the  guesses  to  the 
greatest  degree,  the  extra-chance  influence  is  not  really  large.  As  an  ex- 
planation for  a  large  deviation  from  probability  in  the  results  of  a  long 
series  of  thought-transference  experiments — such,  for  example,  as  the 
Creery  experiments  (see  Appendix  C) — it  is  unsatisfactory. 

For  a  smaller  deviation  above  probability,  however,  this  explanation 
may  be  legitimate,  as  has  proven  the  case  in  an  interesting  investigation 
conducted  by  Professor  E.  C.  Pickering  103  of  the  Harvard  College  Ob- 
servatory during  the  early  days  of  the  old  American  Society  for  Psy- 
chical Research.  He  observed  that  if  thought-transference  is,  as  Richet 
suspected,  commonly  operative  to  a  substantial  degree  among  normal 
persons,  an  important  error  might  be  entering  the  observations  of  the 
star-magnitudes  with  which  the  Observatory  was  just  then  engaged,  in 
conjunction  with  other  observatories,  in  the  revision  of  Argelander's 
Durchmusterung.  The  observer,  after  familiarizing  himself  with  the 
Durchmusterung  scale  of  brightnesses,  estimated  the  brightness  of  each 
star  observed.  After  each  estimate,  the  Durchmusterung  magnitude  was 
read  aloud  by  the  recorder,  to  enable  the  observer  to  continually  correct 
his  scale.  Since  the  Duchmusterung  magnitude  was  commonly  in  the 
recorder's  mind  while  the  observer  was  forming  his  estimate,  there  was 
the  opportunity  for  the  estimate  to  be  supplied  by  thought-transference 
from  the  mind  of  the  recorder.  If  this  process  occurred,  there  would  be 
an  excess  of  zero  deviations  of  the  estimates  from  the  Durchmusterung 
magnitudes.  A  large  number  of  observations — about  50,000 — of  the 
stars  between  +500  and  +55°  were  at  hand  for  inspection.     Of  these, 


101  Vide,  supra,  Table  XLII,  p.  90. 

102  Vide,  supra,  Table  XLI,  p.  89. 

103  Pickering:     Possibility  of  errors  in  scientific  researches,  due  to  thought- 
transference.     Proceedings  Am.S.P.R.,  1885,  Series  I,  1 :  35-43- 


APPLICATION    TO    THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 


295 


7568  observations  in  0,  6,  12,  and  18  hours  of  right  ascension  were 
deemed  sufficient  for  statistical  treatment.  There  were  three  observers 
(R.,  3128;  P.,  3248;  W .,  1 192)  and  five  recorders,  which  permitted  an 
analysis  of  data  for  testing  the  results  of  various  pairs  of  workers.  The 
deviations  of  the  observations  from  the  Durchmusterung  magnitudes 
were  tabulated  according  to  size  and  their  distribution  was  compared 
with  the  theoretical  distribution.  There  was  no  significant  deviation  in 
the  distribution  of  Observer  P. ;  but  in  the  distributions  of  Observers  R. 
and  IV.  the  excess  of  0  deviations  was  conspicuous,  as  may  be  seen  in 
Curves  A  and  B  of  Plate  XLI.     (The  abscissae  give  the  deviations  from 


A 

1 

\ 

I 

\ 

/ 

\ 

A 

9 

\ 

°— 

c 

J 

-1. 0  -0. 5  O.  0  *C.  5  ♦!.  o  -1.0  -o.  s  a  0  to.  &  »1.  a 


nro 

B 

J 

0™ 

D 

\ 

/ 

\\ 

-1.0  -0.6 


Plate  XLI. —  Frequency  curves  of  deviations  of  estimates  of  star  magnitudes  from 
the  Durchmusterung  magnitudes,  showing  influence  of  similar  mental 
habits  in  excess  of  coincidence  of  estimates  on  0  deviation. 
Curve  A.     Deviations  of  Observer  R. 
"       B.  "  "  "         W. 

"       C.  R.  Mental  habit  eliminated. 

"      D.  "  "  "         W.       " 

-1.0  to  +1.0;  the  ordinates  give,  in  per  cent,  the  frequency  of  occurrence. 
The  smooth  curves  represent  approximate  probability.)  This  would  be 
excellent  evidence  for  thought-transference,  were  there  no  other  causes 
for  this  departure  from  theoretical  probability.  But,  as  may  be  seen 
from  Plates  XX  and  XXa,104  the  Durchmusterung  is  influenced  by  a 


104  Supra,  pp.  245  and  246  respectively. 


296  MENTAL  HABIT 

definite  "personal  scale"  which  increased  the  frequency  of  the  estimates 
upon  the  o  and  5  decimal  magnitudes,  and  decreased  frequency  upon  the 
j,  4,  6,  and  9  tenths,  and  tabulation  of  the  estimates  made  by  Observers 
R.  and  W .  revealed  the  same  "personal  scale."  Removal  of  the  effect  of 
the  common  mental  habits,  by  retabulating  an  equal  number  of  deviations 
of  estimates  from  each  of  the  Durchmusterung  magnitudes  of  8.3  to  9.2, 
reduced  the  frequency  of  the  0  deviation  in  the  distributions  of  both  ob- 
servers to  an  amount  that  falls  within  the  range  of  chance  deviation 
(see  Curves  C  and  D).  Thus  a  small  but  significant  deviation  that  at 
first  appeared  to  be  good  evidence  for  thought-transference  turned  out 
to  be  the  effect  of  a  common  equation  decimate. 

Experiments  in  thought-transference  in  which  such  materials  as 
digits,  playing-cards,  and  estimates  of  star-magnitudes  are  used  may,  in 
this  way,  be  vitiated  to  an  appreciable  degree  by  the  operation  of  common 
number-preferences,  common  card-preferences,  and  a  common  "personal 
scale."  But  often  other  materials,  not  so  amenable  to  statistical  treat- 
ment, are  used  in  thought-transference  experiments  for  the  purpose  of 
getting  results  the  more  striking  as  coincidence  is  conceived  to  be  the 
more  unlikely.  Reliance  is  placed  upon  an  infinitesimal  probability.  And 
here,  it  may  be,  mental  habit  enters  with  more  power  to  distort  the  results 
because  of  the  fundamental  and  far-reaching  similarity  of  mental  pro- 
cesses— because  "we  are  in  mental  matters  all  pure  communists."  105 
Such  materials  are  of  the  nature  of  diagrams  or  drawings,  articles  of 
household  or  personal  use,  names  of  places,  persons,  or  literary  or  his- 
torical characters,  dramatic  events  in  history  or  fiction,  etc. 

To  exclude  the  error  introduced  by  mental  habit  it  is  not  sufficient 
that  the  number  of  things  to  be  thought  of  by  the  agent  and  to  be  guessed 
by  the  percipient  is  definitely  determined  beforehand.  Selection  of  the 
individual  members  of  the  series  during  experimentation  must  be  effected 
in  a  mechanical  way— must  be  drawn  by  lot,  not  merely  "chosen  at  ran- 
dom" by  voluntary  selection.  Marbe  106  has  shown  that  when  groups  of 
two  or  three  playing-cards  are  presentedW  a  number  of  persons,  selec- 
tions have  a  strong  tendency  to  agree  by  reason  of  the  influence  of  com- 
mon preferences,  indicating  that  the  preferences  operate  when  one  makes 
a  visual  selection  as  well  as  when  he  lets  a  card  come  into  his  mind!) 

Now,  the  only  series  of  experiments  reported  by  the  American  Com- 
mittee on  Thought-Transference  that  seems  to  present   fair  proof  of 

106  Minot :     Proceedings  Am.  S.  P.  R.     Series  I,  1 :  314. 

106  Karl  Marbe :  Ueber  das  Gedankenlesen  und  die  Gleichformigkeit  des  psy- 
chischen  Geschehens.    Zeitschrift  fur  Psychologic,  1910,  56:241-251. 


APPLICATION    TO   THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE  297 

thought-transference  was  conducted  by  W.  H.  Pickering,107  of  Boston, 
who  was  a  member  of  the  Council  of  the  American  Society  for  Psychical 
Research.    Of  this  series  the  Committee  said : 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  agent,  Mr.  William  H.  Pickering,  considers  that  by 
these  experiments  the  reality  of  thought-transference  has  been  proved  as  com- 
pletely as  is  possible  by  a  single  pair  of  observers.  The  Committee  regret  ex- 
tremely that  it  has  been  found  impossible  to  repeat  these  experiments  under  con- 
ditions which  would  justify  them  in  expressing  an  opinion  based  upon  personal 
observation  of  the  phenomena.108 

And  in  the  same  report : 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  report,  that  some  cases  have  been  brought  to  the 
notice  of  the  Committee  which  seem  to  indicate  that,  under  certain  circumstances, 
the  transference  of  a  conception  of  geometric  form  from  one  mind  to  another  may 
take  place  without  the  use  of  the  ordinary  channels  of  sensation.  But  these  cases 
are  at  present  merely  suggestions  for  further  inquiry.  .  .  .     (pp.  114-5). 

The  material  used,  which  seemed  to  offer  the  best  conditions  for 
thought-transference,  consisted  of  a  series  of  ten  geometric  diagrams — 
a  cross,  a  triangle,  a  heart,  a  flag,  an  anchor,  a  bell,  a  star,  a  circle,  a 
square,  a  large  S,  (illustrated  in  the  Proceedings  Am.  S.  P.  R.,  Series  I, 
1:47).     In  description  of  his  method  the  agent  said: 

I  had  the  ten  figures  before  me,  drawn  on  a  sheet  of  paper,  and  selected  them 
at  random,  taking  care  to  have  no  method  in  my  selection,  such  as  taking  alternate 
ones  or  employing  other  artificial  systems.     {Op.  cit.,  pp.  114-5). 

This  is  precisely  the  experimental  condition  that  would  permit  the 
operation  of  preferences,  and  should  the  preferences  be  strong  and  iden- 
tical in  the  minds  of  both  agent  and  percipient  the  excess  of  R  cases 
(19%)  due  to  other  causes  might  easily  be  brought  within  the  range  of 
chance  deviation  (9.5%)  for  the  number  of  experiments  made  (180). 
Since  the  published  data  will  not  permit  a  statistical  correction  for  mental 
habit,  the  suspension  of  judgment  in  the  Committee's  report  is  seen  to  be 
justified. 

But  the  agent  in  his  report  (op.  cit.,  p.  115)  voiced  the  opinion  of 
some  others  engaged  in  psychical  research  when  he  said  that  he  prefers 
"free  drawings"  as  material  for  experiment.  Reliance  would  be  placed 
upon  an  infinitesimal  probability.  Here,  however,  mental  habit  may  op- 
erate to  such  a  degree  as  to  raise  the  probability  of  R  cases  to  a  very 
substantial  figure, — and  the  situation  is  calculated  to  baffle  all  statistical 


107  Wm.   H.   Pickering:     Experiments  on  thought-transference.     Proceedings 
S.P.R.,  1886,  Series  I,  1:113-6. 
™sIbid.,  p.  no. 


298  MENTAL  HABIT 

calculation,  fruitful  of  controversy  without  end  among  those  who  seek 
to  interpret  the  results. 

In  order  to  determine  the  approximate  degree  to  which  mental  habit 
operates  in  thought-transference  experiments  in  which  "free  drawings" 
are  used,  Professor  Minot109  sent  out  to  members  and  friends  of  the 
American  Society  for  Psychical  Research  a  large  number  of  blank  postal 
cards,  with  the  printed  request:  "Please  draw  ten  diagrams  on  this  card, 
without  receiving  any  suggestion  from  any  other  person,  and  add  your 
name  and  address." 

He  received  for  statistical  analysis  501  cards,  310  from  men,  169 
from  women,  and  22  unsigned.    His  first  table  shows  that 

There  is  an  enormous  preponderance  of  a  few  figures,  a  great  preponderance 
of  some  others,  and  a  certain  preponderance  of  still  others,     (p.  304). 

The  order  of  preference  was:  Circles  287,  squares  236,  triangles  220; 
four-sided  figures  245,  other  straight-sided  figures  149,  "making  of  these 
very  simple  figures  1137,  or  over  one-fifth  of  the  total  number"  (p.  305). 
There  was  less  variety  among  the  diagrams  of  the  women  than  among 
those  of  the  men,  showing  a  greater  influence  of  mental  habit  which 
would  play  a  heavier  role  were  the  percipient  a  woman,  and  a  still  heavier 
one  were  both  agent  and  percipient  women. 

[Beyond  the  diagrams  resulting  from  specially  personal  preferences,  and  oc- 
cupational preferences,  there  were  "a  considerable  number"  obviously]  suggested 
by  the  objects  around  the  persons  when  they  were  making  the  diagrams,  or  some 
association  of  ideas,  or  by  the  recollection  of  objects  or  figures  with  which  they 
had  been  specially  or  even  only  casually  occupied  shortly  before ;  but  the  great 
majority  are  of  such  a  character  that  we  need  not  hesitate  to  designate  them  as 
thrown  out  of  the  mind,  or  as  ejective  ...  (p.  313).  The  images  and  notions 
which  pass  across  the  consciousness  of  each  individual  are  almost  all  common 
property.  .  .  .  Our  thoughts  are  in  large  measure  owned  by  the  community ;  we 
are  in  mental  matters  all  pure  communists.  .  .  . 

^.rlt  is  evident  that  if  two  persons  are  requested  to  think  of  some  one  thing  of 
a  class,  such  as  a  letter  of  the  alphabet,  a  playing-card,  a  baptismal  name,  there  is 
by  no  means  an  equal  chance  of  their  selecting  any  one;  on  the  contrary,  there 
is  not  only  the  probability  that  they  will  think  of  a  special  one  first,  but  there  is 
a  chance  of  their  both  thinking  of  the  same  one,  for  the  relative  frequency  or  pre- 
ponderance of  one  idea  or  image  out  of  a  set  has  been  shown  to  be  similar  for  a 
number  of  people.  In  order  to  prove  the  reality  of  thought-transference,  it  must 
be  demonstrated  that  the  observed  coincidence  of  thoughts  can  not  be  explained  by 
the  law  of  relative  frequency y 

' Let  us  suppose  by  way  of  illustration  that  two  persons  make  an  experiment 

in  thought-transference  with  diagrams.     The  agent  draws  a  circle;    now,  four  per- 


108  Minot:     Second   report  on  experimental  psychology :— upon  the  diagram- 
tests.     Proceedings  Am.S.P.R.,  1889,  Series  I,  1:302-317. 


APPLICATION    TO    THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE  299 

sons  out  of  ten  are  likely  to  draw  a  circle,  and  to  draw  it  near  the  beginning  of  a 
series  of  diagrams;  instead,  therefore,  of  the  chances  of  the  percipient's  drawing 
a  circle  being  almost  infinitely  small,  they  are  very  great.  The  trial  is  proceeded 
with ;  the  circle  having  been  drawn,  it  is  probable  that  the  next  figure  will  be  dif- 
ferent, as  our  cards  show  ;  the  agent  draws  a  square ;  again  the  percipient's  un- 
conscious chances  are  very  great.  And  so  on  with  a  considerable  series  of  dia- 
grams. In  this  manner  thought-transference  might  be  simulated,  and  a  proof  of  its 
reality  obtained,  which  would  seem  overwhelming  so  long  as  the  law  of  relative 
frequency  is  disregarded  as  an  explanation,     (pp.  314-5). 

Professor  Minot  in  the  light  of  his  results  examined  several  series 
of  experiments  published  by  the  English  Society,  including  the  "free 
drawing"  experiments  of  Herr  Schmoll 110  concerning  which  that  inves- 
tigator said : 

The  results  of  the  preceding  trials  clearly  leave  much  to  be  desired ;  never- 
theless, it  is  not  to  be  denied  that  in  many  cases  the  reproduction  possesses  the 
fundamental  character  of  the  original,  and,  indeed,  in  many  (as,  for  example,  Nos. 
2,  8,  12,  13,  18,  21,  24,  25)  very  strongly  approaches  precision.  In  no  single  case, 
strictly  speaking,  did  there  appear  absolute  discrepancy  between  the  form  of  the 
reproduction  and  that  of  the  original.  We  have  therefore  been  able  to  convince 
ourselves  that  the  agents,  concentrating  their  looks  on  the  given  object,  projected 
on  the  mental  eye  of  the  percipient  a  picture  more  or  less  resembling  it,  and  we 
take  it  as  incontrovertible  that  the  above  results  could  not  have  been  achieved  by 
conscious  or  unconscious  guessing,     (p.  336). 

And  he  (Minot)  said: 

If  we  examine  the  drawings  ...  we  notice  at  once  that  .  .  .  the  figures  drawn 
by  both  the  agents  and  percipients  are  in  greater  part  just  such  as  our  diagram- 
tests  have  shown  to  be  the  ones  likely  to  be  drawn.  The  authors  of  the  articles 
in  question  having  fundamentally  misconceived  the  nature  of  the  chances,  of  course 
fail  to  offer  the  necessary  proof  that  the  proportion  of  coincidences  was  greater 
than  chance  would  account  for.     (p.  315). 

He  even  went  further,  saying 

If  Messrs.  Blackburn  and  Smith  had  observed  that  there  are,  saf  fifty  dia- 
grams which  people  are  likely  to  draw,  a  code  could  have  been  easily  arranged  for 
the  former  to  signal  to  the  latter  which  one  or  two  of  the  diagrams  had  been 
drawn,  (jlf,  further,  the  code  include  signals  for  straight  lines,  for  semicircular 
curves,  for  right,  left,  up  and  down,  or  below  and  above,  it  would  not  be  very 
difficult  nor  require  long  for  a  couple  of  expert  collusionists  to  accomplish  the 
thought-transference  of  almost  any  of  the  diagrams  in  the  series  given  in  the  pages 
cited.  I  do  not  bring  any  accusation  against  the  two  gentlemen  who  achieved  the 
remarkable  successes  reported  by  the  English  committee ;  I  merely  point  out  that 
the  hypothesis  of  fraud  still  remains  tenable,  and  that  unless  it  is  met  adequately, 


110  Anton  Schmoll :     Experiments  in  thought-transference.     Proceedings  S.  P. 
R.,  1887,  4:324-336. 


300  MENTAL  HABIT 

persons  of  cautious  judgment  must  consider  that  the  explanation  of  the  success  of 
Mr.  Smith  in  the  reproduction  of  drawings  is  more  probably  fraud  than  super- 
sensuous  thought-transference. 

If  this  view  is  adopted,  the  general  conclusion  is  unavoidable  that  none  of 
the  experiments  heretofore  published  afford  conclusive  evidence  of  thought-trans- 
ference.111    (p.  316-7). 

To  this  sweeping  conclusion  there  were,  of  course,  vigorous  protests, 
the  justice  of  which  will  be  presently  shown.  But  Minot  made  his  point. 
He  showed  an  important  source  of  error  based  upon  "the  relative  fre- 
quency of  ideas,"  and  properly  charged  the  English  investigators  with 
failure  upon  some  occasions  to  take  account  of  it. 

An  investigation  was  soon  after  made  by  Lieut. -Colonel  G.  Le  M. 
Taylor112  to  test  Minot'syiaw  of  relative  frequency."  He  "prepared  40 
sheets  of  paper  by  marking  "or!~on  each  side  25  ^square  spaces  headed 
'Please  draw  25  diagrams  without  receiving  suggestions  from  any  person, 
one  in  each  of  the  spaces  below,  running  down  each  column  in  succes- 
sion, beginning  at  the  top  of  No.  I.'  "  He  numbered  the  columns  from 
left  to  right,  and  marked  the  sheets  iA,  iP,  2A,  2P,  etc.,  so  that  after 
they  had  been  filled  out  by  forty  friends  they  would  fall  into  pairs  [as  iA 
(agent),  iP  (percipient)]  and  could  be  examined  for  coincidences  of 
drawings.  Altogether  there  were  2000  diagrams,  which  would  correspond 
to  20  experiments  in  thought-transference  of  50  trials  each.  Upon  com- 
paring, in  pairs,  his  "agent"  papers  with  his  "percipient"  papers,  he  dis- 
covered only  one  absolute  correspondence  (a  square),  10  cases  of  corre- 
spondence in  idea,  and  9  cases  of  correspondence  in  shape.  There  were 
besides  "about  40  pairs  having  some  features  in  common,  but  which  are 
not  similar  enough  to  be  counted."  He  allowed  20  successes  for  the  1000 
trials. 

He  then  turned  to  two  series  of  results  of  thought-transference  ex- 
periments published  in  the  English  Proceedings  for  comparison  of  the 
frequency  t>f  coincidence  of  drawings,  and  found  13  correspondences  in 
42  attempts.  Unfortunately,  the  series  he  selected  were  performed  by 
Blackburn  and  Smith,  the  coincidences  in  which  Blackburn  later  claimed 
to  have  been  produced  by  the  arts  of  collusion  (see  Appendix  C).113 

His  reagents,  like  those  of  Minot's,  showed  "a  tendency  to  draw 
certain  diagrams"  but  not  in  the  same  order  of  frequency;    they  had  a 


111  Cf.,  Appendix  C. 

112  Taylor :     Experimental  comparison  between  chance  and  thought-transfer- 
ence in  correspondence  of  diagrams.     Proceedings  S.P.R.,  1889,  6:398-405. 

113  He   included  the   famous   Fig.   22,   which  we   have  reproduced   in   Appen- 
dix C. 


APPLICATION    TO   THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 


301 


pj^ference  for  men>  animals,  and  flowers  rather  than  for  simple  geometric 
forms;  they~too  had  a^partiality  for  words  and  letters;  their  diagrams, 
However^  were  more  complex  in  character,  more  varied,  less  subject  to 
common  mental  habits.  The  differences  in  the  results  seem  to  follow 
naturally  from  the  differences  in  the  conditions  of  experiment.  Taylor's 
40  friends,  although  "they  belonged  to  a  single  stratum  of  society  and 
might  therefore  be  expected  to  express  a  large  number  of  common  pref- 
erences, belonged  to  that  stratum  of  society  that,  perhaps  more  than  any 
other  since  classical  times,  cherishes  intellectual  independence  combined 
with  charm  and  grace  in  personal  expression.  His  request  would  arouse 
a  psychical  liveliness  and  piquancy  foreign  to  the  501  New  Englanders 
who  contributed  Minot's  results.  The  drawings  which  Taylor  published 
give  indication  of  artistic  talent  and  training  which  one  would  not  expect 
to  find  in  a  sample  of  40  persons  among  Minot's  reagents.  Statistically, 
also,  one  would  expect  to  find  greater  relative  variation  in  the  results  of 
40  persons,  than  of  501  persons ;  and  in  diagrams  drawn  to  the  number 
of  25  by  each  reagent  than  to  the  number  of  10.  The  experimental  dis- 
abilities of  Taylor's  investigation  for  testing  Minot's  "law  of  relative 
frequency,"  prevent  it  from  casting  any  discredit  whatever  upon  Minot's 
chief  contribution. 

With  respect  to  Minot's  sweeping  conclusion  affecting  all  published 
thought-transference  experiments,  there  is  room  for  difference  of  opin- 
ion. If  one  interprets  his  strictures  as  applying  the  error  of  mental 
habit  only  to  those  experiments  in  which  the  conditions  of  experiment 
would  permit  it  to  enter,114  and  other  experimental  errors  equally  serious 
to  the  rest  of  the  experiments,  he  doubtless  has  to  this  day  99.9%  of  the 
scientific  men  of  the  world  with  him. 

There  is,  perhaps,  not  a  single  series  of  thought-transference  experi- 
ments in  which  "free  drawings"  were  used,  or  for  that  matter  any  other 
"free"  ideas,  which  can  withstand  in  a  respectable  fashion  the  deadly  fire 
of  the  "mental  habit"  criticism.  A  few  series  do,  indeed,  show  so  many 
correspondences  that  "mental  habit"  cannot  be  an  adequate  explanation. 
But  they  strongly  suggest,  by  the  sort  of  correspondence,  that  they  are 
due  to  collusion  and  fraud.  Indeed,  for  some  of  them,  confessions  (in 
some  quarters  still  discredited)  claim  as  much. 

One  of  the  series  upon  which  great  reliance  has  been  placed  for 
proof  of  telepathy-at-a-distance  does  not  escape: 

114  That  this  was  his  own  meaning  may  be  seen  from  an  "Open  Letter  Con- 
cerning Telepathy,"  which  was  a  rejoinder  to  Dr.  Hodgson,  one  of  his  critics  (vide, 
Proceedings  Am.  S.  P.  R.,  Series  I,  1 :547  f.)  • 


302  MENTAL  HABIT 

I  am  satisfied  that  in  the  great  majority  of  cases  the  coincidences  of  thought 
and  expression  are  sufficiently  explained  by  the  natural  association  of  ideas  in 
minds  preoccupied  with  the  Same  themes.  As  an  illustration  of  this  I  think  the 
experiments  of  Miss  Miles  and  Miss  Ramsden,  on  which  Sir  W.  F.  Barrett  lays  so 
much  stress,  are  of  some  value;  whereas  their  worth  as  scientific  evidence  for 
telepathy-at-a-distance  is  almost  »»'/.m 

One  of  the  protests  to  Minot's  sweeping  conclusions  was  made  by 
Professor  James :  116 

His  painstaking  study  of  the  diagrams  sent  in  by  our  associates  has  given  a 
more  definite  numerical  form  to  the  already  well-known  fact  that  simple  geomet- 
rical figures,  letters,  faces,  houses,  and  scrawls  are  the  most  likely  things  both  to 
be  drawn  and  guessed  in  thought-transference  experiments  where  improvised  draw- 
ings are  used.  But  he  seems  to  me  greatly  to  exaggerate  the  importance  of  this 
diagram-habit  when  he  considers  that  the  absence  of  special  provisions  against  it 
in  the  English  Society's  experiments  constitutes  a  very  formidable  objection  to 
their  value  as  proofs  of  thought-transference. 

Our  readers  will  not  have  forgotten  that  only  a  small  number  of  the  experi- 
ments recorded  in  the  English  Society's  Proceedings  were  made  with  diagrams  at 
all.  Where  diagrams  were  used,  it  is  true  that  their  elements  were  almost  always 
the  familiar  ones  above  mentioned.  With  so  few  elements  a  code  of  signals  is 
much  less  difficult  than  with  more;  and  Dr.  Minot  consequently  infers  that  where 
whole  series  of  diagrams  were  rightly  guessed,  this  may  well  have  been  because 
the  agent  secretly  conveyed  information  to  the  percipient  by  such  a  code. 

He  grants  the  applicability  of  Minot's  criticism  to  experiments  in 
which  "free  diagrams"  were  used  except  those  in  which  there  was 
"wholesale  right  guessing,"  for  which  Minot  had  suggested  code  as  a 
reasonable  explanation.  Of  five  specified  series  he  selects  as  the  most 
striking  the  two  in  which  Blackburn  and  Smith  were  engaged,  scouts 
code,  and  concludes : 

I  cannot  agree,  therefore,  that  the  revelation  of  the  diagram-habit  has  ap- 
preciably weakened  the  evidence  for  thought-transference  actually  to  be  found  in 
the  English  Society's  reports.  To  most  of  that  evidence  the  existence  of  such  a 
habit  is  wholly  irrelevant ;  and  where  it  is  pertinent,  fraud  based  on  its  use  seems 
so  unlikely,  if  the  reports  are  faithful,  that  vague  suspicions  of  unfaithful  reporting 
and  bad  observation  seem  to  me  to  carry  more  real  skeptical  weight  with  them 
than  Dr.  Minot's  more  definitely  formulated  charge,     (p.  310)- 

The  definitely  formulated  charge  of  fraud  has,  in  the  light  of  later 
events,  reported  in  Appendix  C,  become  more  plausible. 

115Tuckett:  Psychical  researchers  and  "the  will  to  believe."  Bedrock,  1912, 
1  :20i. 

116  James:      Note   to   the    foregoing   report.     Proceedings   Am.S.P.R.,    1889, 

Series  I,  1 :  317-9. 


APPLICATION    TO   THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE  303 

Another  protest  was  made  by  Hodgson  :117 

I  have  no  desire  to  underestimate  the  importance  of  the  considerations  de- 
pending upon  this  [number-habit],  though  the  extent  of  their  application  is  very 
small  as  regards  the  experiments  reported  by  the  English  Society,  being  limited  to 
a  few  of  the  earliest  ones.  Professor  Minot's  research  has  shown  how  important  it 
is,  in  experiments  of  this  kind,  to  beware  that  our  conclusions  are  not  vitiated  by 
ignoring  the  possible  existence  of  certain  habits  in  guessing,  whatever  be  the  class 
of  objects  chosen  for  experiment.  And  it  may  be  owing  to  this  research  that  some 
later  experiments  with  numbers,  recorded  not  in  the  Proceedings,  but  in 
"Phantasms  of  the  Living"  (Vol.  I,  p.  34;  Vol.  II,  p.  653),  are  not  open  to  the 
criticism  depending  on  the  existence  of  the  number-habit.  These  experiments  ap- 
pear to  have  escaped  the  notice  of  both  Professor  Hall  and  Professor  Minot.  (p. 
532). 

He  quoted  from  the  latter  reference: 

The  ninety  numbers  which  contained  two  digits  were  inscribed  on  ninety  slips 
of  paper,  and  placed  in  a  bowl.  Miss  M.  Wingfield,  sitting  six  feet  behind  the  per- 
cipient, drew  a  slip  at  random  and  fixed  her  attention  on  the  number  which  it  bore. 

Showing  that  the  number-habit  of  the  agent  was  excluded  and  that,  con- 
sequently, the  influence  of  the  similar  preferences  of  agent  and  percipient 
could  not  have  been  operative.  He  pointed  out  that  in  the  experiments 
with  playing-cards  performed  with  the  Creery  sisters  118  and  reported  by 
the  English  Committee,  the  cards  were  "drawn  at  random  from  a  full 
pack,"  likewise  excluding  the  operation  of  the  agent's  preferences.  He 
also  referred  to  the  unfortunate  Blackburn-Smith  series,  as  transcending 
in  a  crucial  way  the  influence  of  mental  habit  in  "free  diagrams." 

Dr.  Hodgson  protested  that  the  error  of  mental  habit  can  be  prop- 
erly charged  against  only  a  fragment  of  the  English  experiments.  This 
is  true,  but  it  applies  with  most  force  to  the  "free  diagrams"  and  the  free 
ideas,  for  which  investigators  of  both  societies  seem  to  acquire  a  strong 
predilection  after  they  have  wrestled  with  the  meagre  results  contributed 
by  definite  materials  which  permit  accurate  statistical  calculation. 

As  to  the  precautions  taken  by  the  English  investigators  against 
"mental  habit,"  there  is  evidence,  in  their  provision  for  drawing  the 
material  to  think  of  by  lot,  that  they  became  aware  of  the  danger  near 
the  beginning  of  their  work.  As  early  as  1884  Gurney,  in  a  review  of 
Richet's  experiments  with  the  divining-rod  said : 

It  may  be  worth  while  to  remark  that  either  the  selection  of  the  particular 
hiding-place  ought  to  be  settled  each  time  by  lot,  or  the  percipient  ought  to  be  pre- 


117  Hodgson :      On    some   objections    to   the   theory   of   telepathy.      Idem,   pp. 

528-546. 

118  For  an  evaluation  of  these  series,  see  Appendix  C. 


304  MENTAL  HABIT 

vented  from  knowing  whether  or  not  his  divination  has  been  correct.  Otherwise 
the  chances  of  success  may  be  really  affected  in  the  way  which  M.  Richet  imagined 
in  the  case  of  the  card-guessing.  If  we  allow  the  mind  of  the  agent  to  govern  the 
selection,  then  a  process  in  his  mind  may  find  its  counterpart  in  the  mind  of  the 
percipient.118" 

Mrs.  Sidgwick  noticed  the  number-habits  of  her  percipient  T.,  and, 
after  describing  them,  said,  in  a  footnote  at  the  end  of  her  report : 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  remind  our  readers  that  a  number-habit  affecting 
the  percipient  only  can  have  no  tendency  to  increase  the  number  of  successful 
guesses.119 

In  the  same  number  of  the  Proceedings,  Myers,  in  a  review  of  Max 
Dessoir's  "Das  Doppel-Ich,"  discussed  quite  fully  general  and  idiosyn- 
cratic mental  habits  in  their  relation  to  thought-transference  experiments, 
and,  in  part,  said : 

There  is  no  choice,  I  say,  however  simple  or  arbitrary — not  even  the  choice 
between  heads  and  tails  or  odd  and  even — which  the  human  mind  can  be  trusted 
to  make  as  impartially  as  the  spun  penny  or  the  roulette-ball  would  make  it. 

There  will  presumably  therefore  be  idiosyncratic  number-habits,  as  well  as 
general  number-habits,  and  although  these  are  not  likely  to  become  strong  without 
being  observed,  still  less  to  become  so  potent  as  to  explain  coincidences  in  double- 
numbers  thought  of  by  two  separate  minds,  it  is  undoubtedly  proper  to  eliminate  this 
possible  source  of  error  from  experiments  in  thought-transference.  We  have  made 
it  a  rule,  since  our  first  few  experiments,  to  replace  numbers  in  a  bag,  or  cards  in 
the  pack,  and  shuffle  between  each  trial,  and  draw  at  random,     (pp.  209-210). 

And  the  subject  has  since  been  given  special  attention  in  several 
places.1-0  It  is  generally  agreed  that  the  influence  of  mental  habit  oper- 
ates to  vitiate  the  evidence  for  thought-transference  only  when  the  agent 
selects  the  material  to  be  guessed  and  at  the  same  time  his  mental  habits 
are  similar  to  those  of  the  percipient;  that  in  all  other  cases  it  would 
operate  to  diminish  the  influence  of  any  other  cause  besides  chance ;  and 
that  its  effect  is  eliminated  by  preventing  the  agent  from  expressing  his 
preferences,  i.  e.,  by  drawing  the  number  or  card  to  be  thought  of  by  lot. 

Although  most  of  the  discussion  gave  almost  exclusive  consideration 
to  the  case  of  the  influence  of  mental  habit  upon  the  guessing  of  definite 
materials,  such  as  the  ten  digits,  the  two-place  numbers,  or  playing-cards, 
all  the  possible  occurrences  of  which  are  known  to  the  percipient,  some 
attention  has  been  given  to  the  case  of  the  influence  of  mental  habit  upon 
the  guessing  of  indefinite  materials,  such  as  "free  diagrams." 


nsoGurney:     M.    Richet's    recent   researches   in   thought-transference.     Pro- 
ceedings S.  P.  R.,  1884,  2 :  245. 

119  Proceedings  S.P.R.,  1889,  6:170. 
1=0  Journal  S.P.R.,  1899,  9:118-9. 


APPLICATION    TO   THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE  305 

Podmore,121  under  the  caption  "Special  Grounds  of  Caution,"  dis- 
cussing "Thought-forms,"  in  part,  said : 

There  remains  one  other  source  of  error  to  be  guarded  against.  An  image — 
whether  of  an  object,  diagram,  or  name — which  is  chosen  by  the  agent  may  be  cor- 
rectly described  by  the  percipient  simply  because  their  minds  are  set  to  move  in 
the  same  direction.  It  must  be  remembered  that,  however  unexpected  and  spon- 
taneous they  may  appear,  ideas  do  not  come  by  chance,  but  have  their  origin 
mostly  in  the  previous  experience  of  the  thinker.  Persons  living  constantly  in  the 
same  physical  and  intellectual  environment  are  apt  to  present  a  close  similarity  in 
their  ideas.  It  would  not  even  be  prima  facie  evidence  of  thought-transference,  for 
instance,  if  husband  and  wife,  asked  to  think  of  a  town  or  of  an  acquaintance, 
should  select  the  same  name.  And  investigation  has  shown  that  our  thoughts  move 
in  grooves  which  are  determined  for  us  by  causes  more  deep-seated  and  more  gen- 
eral than  the  accident  of  particular  circumstances.  Thus  it  is  found  that  individ- 
uals will  show  a  preference  for  certain  figures  or  certain  numbers  over  others ; 
and  that  the  preference  for  some  geometrical  figures  tends  to  be  tolerably  con- 
stant ...  (p.  15).  ...  If  a  diagram  [is  thought  of],  it  is  preferable  that  it 
should  be  taken  at  random  from  a  set  of  previously-prepared  drawings,     (p.  17). 

And  a  few  years  later  Miss  Alice  Johnson  122  said : 

In  the  early  days  of  the  Society,  some  of  the  most  striking  results  obtained 
were  in  experiments  in  which  the  percipient  attempted  to  reproduce  drawings  or 
diagrams  made  by  the  agent.  ...   (p.  161). 

They  were  criticised  on  the  ground  of  the  familiar  fact  that  the  minds  of  men 
have  a  tendency  to  run  in  certain  grooves, — so  that,  for  instance,  if  one  is  asked 
to  think  of  or  to  draw  objects,  or  to  think  of  playing-cards  or  numbers,  each  per- 
son, though  he  may  not  be  aware  of  it,  has  favourites  and  is  more  likely  to  think 
of  some  objects,  cards,  or  numbers,  than  others.  These  mental  "habits"  as  they 
are  sometimes  called,  may  be  alike  in  several  persons ;  and  when  this  is  so  in  the 
case  of  two  experimenters,  a  certain  proportion  of  the  diagrams  drawn  by  the  per- 
cipient may  resemble  those  drawn  by  the  agent,  and  thus  simulate  the  phenomenon 
of  thought-transference,     (p.  162). 

In  experiments  with  drawings,  where  the  number  of  possible  drawings  is  un- 
restricted, it  is,  of  course,  impossible  to  calculate  how  many  successes  might  be 
obtained  by  chance;  the  question  can  only  be  tested  empirically,  and  a  very  large 
number  of  trials  is  necessary  to  ensure  a  completely  satisfactory  test.     (pp.  162-3). 

The  unsatisfactory  status  of  the  experimental  evidence  for  thought- 
transference  that  is  based  upon  coincidences  of  "free  diagrams"  or  other 
"free"  material  in  an  indefinite  series,  because  of  the  influence  of  com- 
mon mental  habits,  suggests  another  sort  of  evidence  adduced  for  the 
proof  of  thought-transference  which  is  still  more  unsatisfactory,  because 
it  is  vitiated  not  only  by  mental  habits  of  various  forms  but  also  by  all 
those  factors  that  work  for  the  fallibility  of  human  testimony. 


121  Podmore :      Apparitions    and    Thought-Transference.      London,    1894    PP- 

15-17. 

1"  Alice  Johnson:     Coincidences.    Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  1889,  14:158-321. 


306  MENTAL  HABIT 

Telepathic  dreams,  hallucinations,  and  impressions — so-called  "spon- 
taneous cases" — depend,  for  their  record,  upon  the  memory  of  persons 
who  cannot  be  presumed  to  have  exercised  the  ordinary  care  in  observa- 
tion, in  recall,  or  in  report,  which  is  demanded  of  the  commonest  scien- 
tific observer.  These  latter  disabilities  were  sufficiently  real  to  cause  nat- 
uralists to  discount  the  traveler's  tale  of  "a  beast  with  the  tail  of  a  beaver 
and  the  bill  and  webbed  feet  of  a  duck," — the  ornithorhynchus — just  as 
they  still  discredit  the  reports  of  great  sea  serpents  and  flying  horses. 

In  all  these  cases,  so  long  as  the  alleged  facts  rest  solely  on  the  testimony 
of  men  untrained  in  habits  of  close  observation  and  accurate  reporting,  a  suspen- 
sion of  judgment  seems  to  be  justified.  And  if  these  considerations  are  valid  in 
ordinary  cases,  a  much  higher  degree  of  caution  may  be  reasonably  demanded  of 
investigators  who  leave  the  neutral  ground  of  the  physical  sciences  to  enter  upon 
a  field  in  which  the  emotions  and  sympathies  are  most  keenly  engaged,  and  in  which 
the  incidents  narrated  may  have  served  to  afford  support  to  the  dearest  hopes  and 
sanction  to  the  deepest  convictions  of  the  narrator.  So  insidious,  in  such  a  case, 
is  the  work  of  the  imagination,  so  untrustworthy  is  the  memory,  so  various  are 
the  sources  of  error  in  human  testimony,  that  it  may  be  doubted  whether  we 
should  be  justified  in  attaching  weight  to  the  phenomena  of  telepathic  hallucination 
and  clairvoyance,  to  which  a  large  part  of  this  book  is  devoted,  if  the  alleged  ob- 
servations were  incapable  of  experimental  verification.123 

The  statistical  advantage  of  the  experimental  over  the  spontaneous 
cases  has  been  pointed  out  by  Professor  Richet  :,23a 

I  do  not  think  that  experiments  with  diagrams  have  the  same  demonstrative 
force  as  experiments  with  cards,  where  the  chances  are  exactly  known. 

And  also  by  Miss  Johnson  :12i 

...  In  successful  experiments  dealing  with  the  events  in  a  chance  series 
(e.  g.,  experiments  in  guessing  cards  or  numbers)  it  is  not  necessary  to  allow  any- 
thing for  the  action  of  inference.  For  this  reason,  such  experiments  afford  more 
satisfactory  proof  of  supernormal  power  than  spontaneous  cases.  Incidentally,  they 
possess  the  further  advantage  that  the  degree  of  probability  of  success  in  them  is 
not  a  matter  that  admits  of  difference  of  opinion.  ...  (p.  183). 

...  In  considering  events  that  are  causally  connected,  there  always  are,  from 
the  nature  of  the  case,  rational  grounds  for  inferring  from  one  event  something 
about  another  one,  and  inference  is  then  likely  to  lead  us  right  oftener  than  wrong 
on  the  whole,     (p.  183). 

The  causal  relations  between  the  events,  that  for  the  purpose  of  sta- 
tistical treatment  should  be  independent,  may  lie  in  associations  which 
the  persons  concerned  share  in  common ;  and  since  there  are  associations 


123  Podmore :     Apparitions  and  Thought-Transference,  p.  5. 
123a  Proceedings  S.P.R.,  1889,  6:69,  footnote. 

124  Alice  Johnson:     Coincidences.     Proceedings  S.P.R.,  1898,  14:158-321. 


APPLICATION  TO  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE  307 

of  all  degrees  of  commonness  the  range  of  error  due  to  inference,  so  far 
as  persons  are  concerned,  is  unrestricted.  This  sort  of  error  depends 
more  upon  the  psychical  connections  between  ideas  which  determine  their 
sequence  than  upon  the  frequency  with  which  ideas  arise  in  the  mind.  It  is 
consequent  upon  the  facts  that  human  experience  is  integrated  and  that  it 
is  communistic.  The  word-reaction  experiment  provides  a  typical  illus- 
tration of  both  the  extent  and  the  force  of  this  inflmence.  As  was  shown 
some  pages  above,12'  the  responses  of  iooo  normal  persons  to  the  stim- 
ulus-word needle  were  all  comprised  in  72  words,  and  the  responses  of 
800  persons  to  the  stimulus-word  dark  were  all  comprised  in  7  words.  A 
modification  of  the  word-reaction  toward  the  form  of  a  "chain  of  ideas" 
illustrates  the  manner  in  which  the  suggestive  force  of  many  common  as- 
sociations may  be  converged  into  determining  power.  Last  semester  the 
writer  by  way  of  demonstration  conducted  a  class-exercise  in  which  he 
pronounced  three  links  of  a  chain  of  ideas,  each  member  of  the  class  being 
required  to  record  immediately  three  further  ideas.  It  had  been  ex- 
plained with  the  assistance  of  an  illustration  that  the  ideas  recorded  should 
be  the  first  successive  three  that  came  to  mind  after  the  writer's  third 
was  given.  The  stimulus-ideas  were,  Lafayette,  Delaware,  cherry  tree. 
The  number  of  students  who  responded  was  160. 

For  the  4th  idea,  93  gave  Washington,  18  gave  hatchet, 
"      "     5th      "      33      "       hatchet,  13     "      Washington, 

"     "    6th     "      17     "      lie,  13     "     Father. 

TABLE  LXXIX. 

No.  of      No.  of  Responses  Comprised        No.  of  Words  used   w[^  ^ndUwith 
Idea  in  2  words        in   10  words  in  all  responses        Hjs{    associations 

4th  in  135  35  149 

5th  46  90  66  133 

6th  30  66  89  128 

Now,  it  must  have  been  from  five  to  fifteen  years  since  these  stu- 
dents learned  the  legend  of  the  cherry  tree  and  the  hatchet,  and  most  of 
them  may  not  have  recalled  it  for  several  years,  but  their  responses  were 
quite  definitely  controlled  by  the  force  of  its  associations,  93  responses 
for  the  4th  place  being  comprised  in  a  single  word,  ill  in  2  words,  135  in 
10  words,  and  all  in  35  words,  and  149  of  the  students  responding  with 
historical  associations.  And,  as  Table  LXXIX  above  shows,  the  deter- 
mining force  of  the  associations  continues,  though  in  diminishing  degree, 
in  the  successive  responses. 


12*  Supra,  p.  285. 


308  MENTAL  HABIT 

In  the  use  of  "free"  materials  of  indefinite  number,  in  thought-trans- 
ference experiments,  and  in  "spontaneous  cases"  of  telepathy,  coinci- 
dences, instead  of  being  infinitely  improbable  as  the  infinite  number  of 
possible  alternatives  would  seem  to  indicate,  must,  because  of  the  suggest- 
ive force  of  common  environment  and  common  associations,  be  highly 
probable. 

The  case  for  thought-transference  will  have  to  rest  upon  experi- 
mental evidence  derived  from  the  use  of  definite  materials  drawn  by  the 
agent  by  lot.  In  our  own  experiments  this  requirement  has  always  been 
fulfilled. 


APPLICATION  TO  SUBLIMINAL  IMPRESSION  309 


APPLICATION  OF  MENTAL  HABIT  TO  OUR  EXPERIMENTS 
ON  SUBLIMINAL  IMPRESSION. 

Since  our  determination  of  the  influence  of  subliminal  sensory  im- 
pression upon  judgment  rested  upon  a  statistical  evaluation  of  R  cases 
in  the  guessing  of  letters  and  digits,  it  is  of  interest  to  learn  whether 
any  serious  error  has  been  admitted  by  reason  of  mental  habit,  which  we 
now  know  constantly  influences  judgment. 

In  the  experiments  on  Subliminal  Impression,126  it  will  be  recalled, 
letters  or  digits  were  presented  by  means  of  a  tachistoscope  under  such 
conditions  as  to  make  the  character  just  not  perceptible.  The  charac- 
ters were  presented  in  an  order  determined  by  chance  (slightly  modified 
so  that  the  characters  were  presented  equally  often),  and  had  all  of  the 
characters  (letters  or  digits)  been  presented,  there  would  have  been  no 
opportunity  for  mental  habit  to  contribute  to  R  cases.  In  the  first  series 
of  the  first  two  divisions,  however,  only  part  of  the  characters  were  pre- 
sented, and  should  the  mental  habits  of  the  reagents  have  expressed  them- 
selves in  preferences  for  the  characters  which  were  chosen  for  presenta- 
tion, just  to  that  extent  would  they  have  contributed  to  R  cases. 

I.  Let  us  examine  first  the  1527  guesses  of  letters  and  digits  made 
in  the  experiments  of  191 5-16  and  tabulated  in  Table  LXII.127  The 
characters  presented  were  B,  H,  K,  U,  Z,  2,  4,  5,  7,  p ;  but  the  reagents 
were  not  told  that  there  was  any  restriction  of  the  alphabetic  or  numer- 
ical series,  were  asked  to  guess  any  letter  or  any  digit — the  first  one  that 
came  to  their  minds, — and  were  expected  to  distribute  their  guesses  im- 
partially over  the  combined  series.  The  probability  of  R  guesses  is  %6 
or  2.8%. 

The  following  is  a  distribution  of  their  guesses : 

ABCDEFGH      IJKLMNOPQR 

9    S3   50   59    26   55   61    12   57 

123456789 
7   39   46   71    62  .66   72   84   61 

Although  individual  reagents  had  strong  preferences  for  individual 
characters,  as,  A,  B,  G,  H,  M,  R,  Z,  3,  and  8,  and  curiously  limited  their 
guesses  often  to  less  than  half  of  the  combined  series,  they  showed  com- 


24 

113  51  23  17  17  54  72 

[i 

51 

T    U    V    W    X    Y     Z 

0 

38 

25  30  4  11  10  5  132 

0 

128  Vide,  supra,  pp.   190  ff. 
127  Supra,  p.  193. 


310  MENTAL  HABIT 

mon  preferences  in  their  aggregate  results  for  B,  H,  Z,  4,  6,  7,  and  8, — 
most  of  the  characters  chosen  for  presentation.  Of  course,  some  of  the 
excess  of  guesses  upon  these  characters  is  due  to  the  direct  influence  of 
subliminal  impressions  resulting  in  R  cases,  and  some  of  it,  as  has  been 
suggested,129  may  be  due  to  a  mental  disposition  effected  by  the  sublim- 
inal impressions  which  expresses  itself  in  increasing  the  frequency  of 
guesses  on  the  exhibited  characters ;  but  both  of  these  effects  would  be 
indistinguishable  from  the  effect  of  mental  habit,  and  for  statistical  pur- 
poses we  may  assume  here  that  it  is  wholly  the  effect  of  mental  habit. 

If  we  aggregate  the  guesses  of  the  presented  characters  we  get  705 
or  46.2%.  The  most  probable  per  cent  is  27.8,  which  leaves  an  excess  of 
18.4%,  owing,  as  we  assume,  to  the  influence  of  mental  habit.129  Since 
there  are  10  presented  characters,  this  excess  should  contribute  1.8%  R 
cases.  The  R  cases,  as  shown  in  Table  LXII,  were  9.8%.  The  remain- 
ing 8%,  less  the  2.8%  due  to  chance, (5.2%),  is  still  2.9  times  the  limit 
of  chance  deviation,  and  represents  the  effect  of  subliminal  impression  or 
any  other  extra-chance  causes  that  could  have  been  operative.  No  seri- 
ous error  has  entered  this  series  by  reason  of  mental  habit;  we  are  not 
sure  that  it  has  contributed  to  R  cases  at  all,  but  it  may  have  contributed 
as  much  as  1.2%  allowing  for  the  other  extra-chance  causes. 

2.  The  guessing  of  digits  presented  to  peripheral  vision  also  per- 
mitted the  entrance  of  mental  habit  as  an  extra-chance  cause  of  R  cases. 
A  letter  and  a  digit  were  presented  simultaneously — the  letter  in  foveal 
vision,  the  digit  in  peripheral  vision — and  after  the  reagent  recorded  the 
letter  from  direct  perception  he  guessed  a  digit.  The  digits  2,  4,  5,  7, 
and  p  only  were  presented.  In  the  experiments  of  Section  I  the  reagent 
did  not  know  that  any  digits  were  being  presented  and  was  expectd  to 
distribute  his  guesses  impartially  over  the  digit-series  from  0  to  9.  The 
probability  of  an  R  guess  by  chance  is  10%.  The  results  were  tabulated 
in  Table  LXVIII.130 

As  was  noticed  in  the  discussion  of  the  results,131  mental  habits  in 
number-guessing  might  have  contributed  to  R  cases  by  narrowing  the 
range  of  digits  used  in  guessing,  and,  consequently,  increasing  the  chances 
for  R  cases.  Tabulations  of  the  digits  guessed  by  the  individual  re- 
agents were  made,  and  it  was  found  that  "but  7  reagents  out  of  the  26 

128  Vide,  supra,  p.  201. 

120  It  includes  also  the  per  cent  of  R  cases  due  to  subliminal  impression.  But 
since  the  per  cent  of  R  cases  due  to  mental  habit  would  be  less  than  0.8  too  great, 
for  the  sake  of  simplicity  this  fact  may  be  disregarded. 

180  Supra,  p.  207. 

1,1  Supra,  p.  207. 


APPLICATION    TO    SUBLIMINAL    IMPRESSION  311 

were  free  from  those  self-imposed  limitations."  A  correction  of  the 
probability  of  occurrence  was  applied  to  each  reagent's  results,  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  range  of  his  guesses,  and  the  revised  results  were  put 
in  Table  LXIX.132 

This  correction,  however,  did  not  take  account  of  number-prefer- 
ences within  the  range  of  guessing,  and  it  may  fairly  be  asked  whether 
a  common  number-habit  is  not  responsible  for  the  significant  excess  of 
R  cases. 

It  has  been  shown  133  that  when  a  considerable  number  of  reagents 
guess  the  digits  in  the  digit-series,  or  the  number  of  spots  on  playing- 
cards,  their  aggregate  guesses  reveal  an  excess  of  guesses  on  the  inter- 
mediate digits. 

Professor  Minot,  upon  the  basis  of  a  study  of  8600  guesses,  said: 

Calculating  from  our  data,  if  10,000  single  digits  be  written  down  in  random 
order,  but  with  the  general  intention  of  putting  each  digit  down  the  same  number 
of  times,  we  should  expect  [distribution  A,  in  Table  LXXX].134 

Our  10,000  cases  of  the  guessing  of  spots  on  playing-cards,  by  nor- 
mal reagents,  are  shown  in  distribution  B. 

TABLE  LXXX. 

4           5          6  7         8  9         0 

109.4     1 10.3     108.5  98.8  94.5  92.6  83.3 

1 14.2     120.8     1 10.2  104.3  88.8  88.0  82.0 

111.8     115.6     109.4  101.6  91.7  90.3  827 

On  the  basis  of  the  number-habits  common  to  no  persons,  shown 
in  the  Avg.  above,  we  may  expect,  in  1000  guesses  of  digits,  an  aggre- 
gate of  521.7  (52%)  upon  the  digits  presented  in  our  tachistoscopic  ex- 
periments. The  most  probable  per  cent  is  50,  which  leaves  as  the  in- 
fluence of  a  common  number-habit  2%.  Since  there  were  five  presented 
digits,  one-fifth  of  these  would  contribute  R  cases,  making  0.4%  R  cases. 
This  contribution  by  mental  habit,  in  comparison  with  the  excess  of 
5.44%  R  cases  shown  in  Table  LXVIII,  is  negligible. 

In  the  other  principal  series  of  tachistoscopic  experiments,  in  which 
the  reagents  limited  their  range  of  guessing  to  the  characters  presented, 
there  was  no  opportunity  for  the  mental  habits  of  the  reagents  to  disturb 
the  chance  occurrence  of  R  cases. 


Digit 
A 

1 

854 

2 
103.8 

3 
1 12.0 

B 

Avg. 

79-3 
82.4 

100.9 
102.4 

III-5 
1 1 1.8 

132  Supra,  p.  208. 

133  Supra,  pp.  269-270;   also  Curves  D  and  E  in  Plate  XXIX,  p.  269,  and  Plate 
XXX,  p.  270. 

134  Proceedings  Am.S.P.R.,  1886,  Series  I,  1:93. 


The  theory  of  probabilities  is  at  bottom  only  common 
sense  reduced  to  calculus.  .  .  .  — Laplace  :  A  Philosophical 
Essay  on  Probabilities.    New  York,  1902,  p.  106. 

The  doctrine  of  chances,  in  fact,  is  at  the  bottom  of  all 
scientific  argument.  .  .  .  — Professor  Charles  Richet, 
Paris,  Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  1889,  6 :  67. 

Psychical  Research  must  ...  be  made  a  question  of 
statistics  if  further  conclusions  are  to  be  based  on  the  re- 
sults.— Northcote  W.  Thomas  :  Thought-Transference. 
London,  1905,  pp.  176-7. 


3" 


INDUCTIVE   PROBABILITY. 

When  the  writer  worked  out  the  conditions  for  the  experiments  on 
thought-transference  some  four  years  ago  he  provided  for  "control"  (Card 
not  Imaged)  experiments  which  would  occur  at  random  and,  so  far  as 
chance  would  allow,  would  be  equal  in  number  to  the  regular  (Card 
Imaged)  experiments,  in  order  that  he  might  have  an  empirical  or  In- 
ductive Probability  with  which  to  compare  the  results  of  the  regular  ex- 
periments.135 His  casual  acquaintance  with  the  large  deviations  in  the 
chance  occurrence  of  events,  in  a  short  series  of  trials,  from  the  probabil- 
ity of  a  single  event,  led  him  to  view  with  distrust  the  application  of 
theoretical  probability.  His  experience,  however,  in  the  last  few  years, 
in  inspecting  and  interpreting  the  experimental  results  in  sets  of  trials 
both  large  and  small,  has  removed  his  doubt  entirely,  and  has  substan- 
tially increased  his  appreciation  of  the  value,  to  scientific  research,  of  the 
mathematics  based  upon  the  theory  of  probability.138 

Instead,  then,  of  essaying  an  elaborate  and  detailed  exposition  of  the 
lawlessness  of  empirical  deviations  from  theoretical  values,  calculated  to 
justify  a  plea  for  the  use  of  empirical  or  inductive  probability,  the  writer 
shall  content  himself  with  portraying  some  of  the  evidence  which  has 
grown  out  of  his  work  which  justifies  at  once  his  faith  in  the  use  of 
theoretical  probability  and  his  conviction  that  here  lies  a  means  so  safe 
and  sure  for  proving  the  supernormal  capacities  of  thought-transference, 


136  Vide,  supra,  pp.  35,  50,  147. 

136  The  general  reader  may  be  referred  to  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  for 
an  excellent  exposition  of  the  theory  by  F.  Y.  Edgeworth;  it  will  be  found  under 
the  title  of  "Law  of  Error"  in  the  Tenth  Edition,  vol.  XXVIII,  or  of  "Probability" 
in  the  Eleventh  Edition,  vol.  XXII.  The  reader  with  some  training  in  mathematics 
may  be  referred,  for  the  development  of  the  theory,  to  "A  History  of  the  Mathe- 
matical Theory  of  Probability,"  Cambridge  and  London :  Macmillan  and  Co.,  1865, 
by  I.  Todhunter.  There  he  will  find  the  development  of  the  formula?  bearing  the 
names  of  Bernoulli,  Poisson,  and  Bayes,  which  we  have  ventured  to  appropriate 
[supra,  pp.  80  ff.]  ;  the  more  pertinent  Articles  being  993-997  (pp.  548-558),  in  the 
chapter  on  Laplace.  Concerning  Laplace's  development  of  "Bernoulli's  Theorem" 
to  the  form  which  we  have  used  [supra,  p.  80],  Todhunter  said  (pp.  552-3)  :  "The 
result  which  has  just  been  obtained  is  one  of  the  most  important  in  the  whole  range 
of  our  subject.  There  are  two  points  to  be  noticed  with  respect  to  the  result.  In  the 
first  place,  it  is  obvious  that  supposing  v  to  be  constant  we  may  by  sufficiently  in- 
creasing n  render  the  limits  p-L  and  p+L  as  close  as  we  please,  while  the  correspond- 

313 


314  INDUCTIVE   PROBABILITY 

lucidity  (clairvoyance),  or  communication  from  discarnate  personalities 
who  can  become  aware  of  anything  that  occurs  in  our  world,  that  by  its 
persistent  use  the  controversies  concerning  these  alleged  phenomena  must 
ultimately  give  way  to  universal  agreement. 

Empirical  and  Theoretical  Distributions. 

Let  us  consider  some  of  the  correspondences  between  our  inductive 
and  the  theoretical  probability.  And  we  may  as  well  begin  with  the  dis- 
tributions of  R  cases.  If  the  R  cases  resulting  from  chance  are  distrib- 
uted about  the  most  probable  number  in  accordance  with  the  theoretical 
law  of  chances,  then  they  may  safely  be  predicted  from  theoretical  prob- 
ability.137 

In  Plates  V  (supra,  p.  99),  VI  (p.  99),  VII  (p.  101),  and  VIII  (p. 
102),  in  which  the  distributions  of  R  cases  on  the  Card,  Color,  Number, 
and  Suit,  respectively,  in  the  guessing  of  playing  cards  when  the  cards 
were  not  imaged  by  the  experimenter  (agent),  are  represented  in  solid 
curves,  we  may  see  that  although,  owing  to  the  relatively  small  number 
of  cases  plotted  (100),  the  curves  are  irregular  and  serrated,  they  follow 
the  general  course  of  the  light  curve  representing  theoretical  probability, 
just  as  the  curves  representing  the  distributions  of  R  cases  in  the  "Card 
Imaged"  experiments  do.  The  modes  (the  abscissae  of  greatest  fre- 
quency) and  the  limits  of  the  curves  agree  very  well.  The  "Card  not 
Imaged"  curves  fit  the  theoretical  curves  as  well  as  do  the  "Card  Imaged" 
curves,   and   for  the  latter  the   "closeness  of  fit"  was   calculated   from 


ing  probability  is  always  greater  than  $(y).  [Vide,  supra,  p.  81,  bottom  of  footnote 
147  for  the  value  of  this  expression].  In  the  second  place,  it  is  known  that  the 
value  of  <J>(y)  approaches  very  near  to  unity  for  even  moderate  values  of  v : 


V 

<£>(Y> 

■5 

.5204909 

1.0 

.8427008 

i-5 

.9661052 

2.0 

•9953223 

2.5 

•9995930 

30 

■9999779 

For  the  use  of  other  statistical  formulae,  based  upon  the  theory  of  probability,  and 
for  their  vindication  by  empirical  results,  the  reader  may  be  referred  to  "An  Intro- 
duction to  the  Theory  of  Statistics,"  London :  Griffin  and  Co.,  1916,  by  G.  Udny 
Yule  (especially  Chapters  XIII,  XIV  and  XV)  ;  and  to  the  first  two  chapters  of 
Vol.  I  in  "The  Chances  of  Death,"  by  Karl  Pearson,  London :    Arnold,  1897. 

137  The   theoretical   distributions   have  been   derived  by  the   use  of   formulae 
given  in  footnotes  166  and  167,  pp.  95-6,  supra. 


EMPIRICAL  AND  THEORETICAL  DISTRIBUTIONS  315 

Pearson's  formulae  138  and  presented  at  the  bottom  of  page  108,  supra. 
Of  iooo  such  distributions  we  should  expect  a  fit  as  close  as  that  shown 
in  Plate  V  in  169  cases,  in  Plate  VI  in  84  cases,  in  Plate  VII  in  760  cases, 
and  in  Plate  VIII  in  274  cases. 

In  some  of  the  distributions  shown  in  our  study  of  mental  habit  the 
empirical  probability  curves  follow  the  theoretical  curve  very  closely 
compared  with  the  deviations  of  the  curves  representing  the  "Card 
Imaged"  experiments,  caused  by  the  influence  of  mental  habit  upon  guess- 
ing. This  may  be  seen  in  Plate  XXXIII,  (p.  274),  which  gives  the  dis- 
tributions "of  the  number  of  times  a  number  was  drawn  or  guessed  in 
100  experiments"  in  card-guessing;  in  Plate  XXXIV  (p.  275)  which 
presents  the  same  data  in  sets  of  1000;  and  in  Plate  XXXIX  (p.  280), 
which  presents  analogous  data  concerning  the  occurrence  of  the  individ- 
ual card.  In  other  distributions,  Plate  XXXV  (p.  276),  showing  the  data 
of  the  occurrence  of  a  red  card,  and  Plate  XXXVII  (p.  278),  showing 
the  data  of  the  occurrence  of  an  individual  suit,  neither  of  the  empirical 
curves  departs  significantly  from  the  theoretical  curve. 

For  a  significant  deviation,  for  which  the  "closeness  of  fit"  was  cal- 
culated, the  reader  is  referred  to  Plate  XI  (p.  ill)  which  compares  the 
distribution  of  R  cases  on  the  "Card,"  expected  by  the  reagents  after 
their  experiments  had  been  finished,  with  the  theoretical  distribution. 
The  "closeness  of  fit"  was  A=  11.66  {vide,  p.  no,  supra)  and  the  prob- 
ability of  its  occurrence  by  chance  was  found  to  be  about  twice  in  one 
septillion  sets  of  5200  guesses  each.  Suppose  the  distribution  here  com- 
pared with  the  theoretical  distribution  had  been  a  distribution  of  R  cases 
actually  made  in  the  card-guessing  rather  than  of  the  number  of  R  cases 
expected  by  the  reagents,  could  its  remarkable  deviation  be  accepted  as 
proof  of  an  extra-chance  cause?  This  query  may  well  occur  to  the  mind 
of  the  reader  who  recalls  the  quotation  we  have  made  from  Venn  139  or 
who  takes  theoretical  probability  at  its  word  and  reflects  that  since  this 
deviation  must  occur  by  chance  twice  in  one  septillion  times,  this  might 
be  one  of  those  times.  We  might  grant,  on  the  basis  of  theory,  that  this 
is  indeed  the  case;  that  the  one  highly  improbable  deviation  proves 
nothing ;  and  that  for  the  purpose  of  proving  an  extra-chance  cause  we 
must  have  a  plurality  of  highly  improbable  deviations.  But,  theoretically, 
no  matter  how  large  our  accumulation  of  such  deviations,  there  is  still 


138  Since  the  A  formula  was  misprinted  in  footnote   179,  p.    no,  supra,  it  is 


■\T8 


given  here:     A=\Z—  ,  in  which  8    is  the  difference  between  the  theoretical  fre- 
quency (y)  and  the  observed  frequency   (f)  of  each  respective  class  in  the  distri- 
bution, and  2  is  the  sign  of  summation.     The  probability  (P)  of  A  is  found  from 
the  formula  correctly  given  in  another  footnote  on  p.  no. 
130  Supra,  p.  149,  footnote  229. 


316  INDUCTIVE  PROBABILITY 

the  necessity  in  a  total  of  cases  expressed  by  a  number  of  a  yet  higher 
order  that  it  must  occur  by  chance.  We  therefore  prefer  to  insist  that 
since  our  quest  is  for  relative  knowledge,  not  absolute  knowledge,  im- 
probability of  an  event  is  an  index  of  the  degree  to  which,  on  the  basis  of 
theory,  we  may  disregard  chance  as  the  cause  of  that  event;  and  for 
practical  purposes,  we  may  fall  back  upon  experience  to  justify  this 
course.  We  assert  then,  our  readiness  to  accept  the  one  highly  improb- 
able deviation  from  theoretical  distribution  as  "significant,"  and  two  or 
more  of  them  as  clinching  the  matter.140  Although  the  ouija  board  has 
been  credited  with  dictating  some  remarkable  poetry  and  repartee,141  the 
necessary  reproduction,  according  to  Venn,  of  one  of  the  plays  of  Shake- 
speare or  of  Milton's  "Paradise  Lost"  or  indeed  of  any  other  of  the  in- 
finite number  of  written  and  unwritten  literary  masterpieces,  has  not  yet 

no  Venn  had  something  to  say  on  both  the  improbability  of  the  occurrences 
he  suggested  in  the  quotation  above  referred  to,  and  the  objection  that  any  such 
occurrence  may  be  the  one  the  laws  of  chance  provide  for : 

Concerning  the  production  of  Milton's  "Paradise  Lost"  by  recording  the  let- 
ters drawn  by  chance  from  a  bag,  he  said: 

"It  would  take  more  days  than  we  have  space  in  this  volume  to  represent  in 
figures,  to  make  tolerably  certain  of  obtaining  the  former  of  these  works  (Milton's 
'Paradise  Lost')  by  thus  drawing  letters  out  of  a  bag  .  .  ."  (op.  cit.,  p.  353).  And 
in  a  footnote  on  the  same  page : 

Assuming  that  there  are  "about  350,000  letters  in  the  work  in  question,  since 
any  of  the  26  letters  of  the  alphabet  may  be  drawn  each  time,  the  possible  number 
of  combinations  would  be  263S0000;  a  number  which,  as  may  easily  be  inferred 
from  a  table  of  logarithms,  would  demand  for  its  expression  nearly  500,000  figures. 
.  Unity  divided  by  this  number  would  represent  the  chance  ..."  P  =  0.(495,247 
zeros]  12;  the  printing  of  which  would  require  a  book  of  about  one  and  a  half 
times  the  size  of  "Paradise  Lost." 

And  concerning  the  objection : 

"The  most  seductive  form  in  which  the  difficulty  about  the  occurrence  of  very 
rare  events  generally  presents  itself  is  probably  this. 

"'You  admit  (some  persons  will  be  disposed  to  say)  that  such  an  event  may 
sometimes  happen;  nay,  that  it  does  sometimes  happen  in  the  infinite  course  of 
time.  How  then  am  I  to  know  that  this  occasion  is  not  one  of  these  possible  oc- 
currences?' To  this,  one  answer  only  can  be  given, — the  same  which  must  always 
be  given  where  statistics  and  probability  are  concerned,— 'The  present  may  be  such 
an  occasion,  but  it  is  inconceivably  unlikely  that  it  should  be  one.  Amongst  count- 
less billions  of  times  in  which  you,  and  such  as  you,  urge  this,  one  person  only  will 
be  justified :  and  it  is  not  likely  that  you  are  that  one,  or  that  this  is  that  occasion.' " 

The  case  of  what  has  been  called  the  "infinitesimal  probability,"  which  applies 
to  a  single  simple  event,  must  be  reserved  for  separate  mention.     ( Vide,  pp.  346  ff . 

infra). 

111  Cf.  Patience  Worth ;    a  psychic  mystery,  by  Casper  S.  Yost.     New  York : 

Holt,  1916. 


EMPIRICAL  AND  THEORETICAL  DISTRIBUTIONS 


317 


occurred;  and  it  may  be  recalled  that  on  page  83,  supra,  we  intimated 
that  scientific  proof  is  satisfied  if  P  =  0.9999779,  when  absolute  certainty 
requires  P=  1,  which  permits  a  negligible  margin  of  two  cases  by  chance 
in  100,000. 

When  the  probability  of  a  single  occurrence  is  moderate  (say  from 
.01  to  .5),  experience  teaches  us  that  the  distribution  of  R  cases  due  to 
chance  does  follow  the  law  of  chances ;  that  almost  all  of  the  R  cases  are 
contained  within  Yule's  practical  limit  of  p  ±  3a,  and  that  practically  all  of 
them  are  contained  within  the  scientifically  satisfactory  limit  of  p  ±  L.1*2 

If  we  tabulate,  from  Table  XIII  (pp.  56-62,  supra),  the  aggregate 
of  the  R  cases  made  by  each  reagent  on  the  "Card,"  in  both  the  "Card  not 
Imaged"  and  the  "Card  Imaged"  experiments  (as,  Reagent,  I,  7;  2,  3;  3, 
4;  etc.)  in  the  form  of  a  distribution,  we  shall  have,  on  the  assumption 
that  chance  was  not  disturbed  in  the  "Card  Imaged"  experiments,  an  em- 
pirical chance  distribution  in  which  there  are  100  cases,  p  =  .025,  and  the 
number  of  experiments  in  a  set  is  100.  It  may  be  compared  with  a  dis- 
tribution made  up  of  the  successive  terms  in  the  expansion  of  the  bino- 


H     69     6fl     66      86     Tt 


L< 4.6  6.6  6.6  106   116  146    166   16.6  2QE   236 


10     IS     16     19 


36     £8     SI     84     87     40 


Plate  XLII. —  Distributions  of  R  Cases  in  Card-Guessing.    Sets  of  ioo. 

ioo  Reagents. 
Curve  ,4.     On  Card,       pn  =   2.5  p  =  .025 

"       B.     On  Color,       pn  =  50.  p  =  .5 

"       C.     On  Number,  pn  =  10.  p  =  .1 

"      D.     On  Suit,        pn  =  25.  p  =  .25 


142  For  the  value  of  the  latter  limit,  vide,  supra,  pp.  82-5 ;   and  of  the  former, 
the  footnote  on  p.  86,  supra. 


318  INDUCTIVE   PROBABILITY 

mial  ioo  (q  +p)100.  It  is  represented  by  Curve  A,  in  Plate  XLII,  and  the 
theoretical  distribution  is  represented  by  the  superposed  smooth  curve. 

In  like  manner  we  may  compare  the  distribution  of  the  R  cases,  in 
sets  of  ioo,  on  Color,  Number  and  Suit,  shown  in  Curves  B,  C,  and  D, 
with  their  theoretical  curves.143 

From  visual  inspection  we  can  see  that  there  is  a  general  correspond- 
ence between  the  empirical  and  their  theoretical  curves.  We  may  also 
note  that  the  empirical  distributions  in  Curves  B  and  D  fall  below  the  30 
limit  ( represented  by  the  light  vertical  line )  ;  that  in  the  skewed  curves, 
A  and  B,  they  extend  a  short  distance  above  the  3a  limit ;  and  that  all  of 
them  fall  below  the  limit  L  (represented  by  the  heavier  vertical  line). 

By  calculation  we  can  give  all  these  facts  in  arithmetical  values : 

TABLE  LXXXI. 
R  Cases  in  Card-Guessing. 
100  sets ;    100  guesses  each. 

Card  Color  Number  Suit 

1.  »(/>+3<j)    7-2  65.  19.  38. 

2.  Largest   value    9.  64.  20.'  37. 

3.  »(/>+L)    9.13  71.2  22.7  43.4 

4.  A    4.1  2.66  3.8               2.1 1 

5.  P    0.077  0.716  0.165           0.819 

By  comparing  line  2,  which  gives  the  largest  value  in  the  empirical 
distributions,  with  the  line  above  it,  the  exact  numerical  relations  between 
the  limit  of  the  empirical  distributions  and  the  30  limit  may  be  seen ;  with 
the  line  next  below  it,  the  L  limit.  Line  4  gives  the  Pearsonian  value 
of  the  "closeness  of  fit,"  and  line  5  gives  the  probability  that  the  empirical 
distributions  are  chance  distributions ;  e.  g.,  in  1000  such  distributions, 
we  should  expect  77  chance  distributions  of  R  cases,  on  the  Card,  716  on 
the  Color,  165  on  the  Number  and  819  on  the  Suit,  to  deviate  farther 
from  the  probability  curve  than  these  do.  All  of  these  empirical  distri- 
butions, then,  may  be  taken  as  good  examples  of  chance  distributions — 
they  conform  to  the  theoretical  law  of  chances. 

Let  us  examine  some  other  empirical  distributions  that  are  available 
for  our  inspection,  and  in  order  that  we  may  see  that  the  serrated  aspect 
of  our  empirical  curves  in  Plates  VI-VIII  (pp.  99  ff.,  supra)  has  not  been 
caused  by  some  veiled  extra-chance  cause,  let  us  first  examine  the  curves 


143  These  curves,  however,  are  smoothed  somewhat  by  aggregating  the  cases 
on  equal  inter-classes ;  e.  g.,  on  Color,  the  cases  on  each  successive  three  variates 
are  aggregated,  those  on  49,  50,  and  51  being  plotted  on  abscissa  50;  on  52,  53,  and 
54,  being  plotted  on  53 ;  etc.  The  values  in  the  theoretical  curves  were  found  in 
the  same  way. 


EMPIRICAL  AND  THEORETICAL  DISTRIBUTIONS 


319 


in  Plate  XLIII.  Curve  A  represents  the  occurrences  of  the  odd  numbers 
in  the  casting  of  a  die  in  ioo  sets  of  100  trials  each,  distributed  upon  each 
successive  variate  corresponding  to  the  respective  terms  in  the  binomial 
loo{q+p)100*  Curve  C  represents  the  occurrences  of  white  balls  in  ioo 
sets  of  ioo  drawings  from  an  urn  containing  an  equal  number  of  black 
and  white  balls,144  distributed  in  the  same  way.  Both  curves  show  the 
serrated  aspect  common  to  our  former  curves,  and  for  the  same  reason : 


W      6S      W      60      SI      «      M      Tl 


Plate  XLIII. —  Distributions  of  the  occurrences  of  Odd  Die-spots,  and  of 
White  Balls  drawn  from  an  urn  containing  an  equal  number  of 
black  and  white  balls,     ioo  sets  of  ioo  cases  each,     p  =  .5. 
Curve  A.    Odd  die-faces,  plotted  on  the  single  terms  in  the  series. 

B.        "  "      "    central  of  three  successive  terms. 

"       C.     White  balls,  "      "    single  terms  in  the  series. 

D.  "     "    central  of  three  successive  terms. 

a  distribution  of  a  relatively  small  number  of  cases  over  a  large  number 
of  abscissae.  The  curves  follow  in  a  general  way  the  course  of  the  super- 
posed theoretical  curves. 

Curves  B  and  D  represent  the  distributions  of  the  same  data,  respec- 
tively, over  successive  inter-class  values,  each  composed  of  three  suc- 
cessive variates,  or  terms  in  the  binomial  series.  The  relations  between 
the  empirical  distributions  and  the  theoretical  distribution  are  there  more 
apparent.    The  "closeness  of  fit"  we  calculate  to  be 


Curve  B,  A  =  4.30 
Curve  D,  A  =  2.36 


P  =  .0462 
P  =  .6705 


*  These  die-casts  were  made  in  our  10,000  experiments  in  card-guessing. 

144  H.  Westergaard :  Die  Grundziige  der  Theorie  der  Statistik.  Jena,  1890, 
p.  22;  quoted  by  Yule:  An  Introduction  to  the  Theory  of  Statistics.  3d  ed.,  Lon- 
don, 1916,  p.  274. 


320  INDUCTIVE  PROBABILITY 

In  10,000  distributions  of  an  equal  number  of  chance  events  we  may  ex- 
pect 462  to  deviate  further  from  the  theoretical  curve  than  curve  B  does, 
and  6705  to  deviate  further  than  Curve  D.  It  is  possible  that  some  even 
faces  of  the  die  were  discarded  by  experimenters  who  were  impatient  to 
have  "Card  Imaged"  experiments,  which  would  introduce  an  extra-chance 
cause  calculated  to  shift  Curve  B  toward  the  higher  variates  as  it  may  be 
seen  to  be.  But  if  this  occurred,  the  disturbance  of  chance  was  so  slight 
that  it  cannot  be  positively  identified.  One  might  suspect  from  the  sub- 
mode  on  abscissa  44  that  some  experimenters  discarded  odd  faces ;  and 
that  the  effect  of  these  two  opposing  influences  is  shown  by  the  cleft  in 
the  center  of  the  curve.  But  when  a  distribution  contains  only  100  cases, 
and  there  are  nine  or  ten  abscissae  over  which  to  plot  them,  the  curves 
may  be  expected  to  be  irregular.  A  cleft  in  the  middle  of  the  distribu- 
tion-curve is  also  seen  in  Curve  A  on  Plate  XLIV  which  shows  the  dis- 
tribution of  the  occurrences  of  a  red  card  in  100  sets  of  100  drawings 


36   38   41   44   47   60   63   66   60   6B   66   68   71 


Plate  XLIV. —  Distributions  of  the  occurrences  of  a  Red  Card  in  drawings  from 
a  shuffled  pack,  and  in  Guesses  of  reagents,    p  =  .5. 

Curve  A.     100  sets  of  100  Drawings  each  (Stanford) 
"       B.     100    "      "    100  Guesses        " 
"        C.   1000     "       "      10  Drawings     "      (Charlier) 

each.  Since  the  cards  were  drawn  from  shuffled  packs  containing  an 
equal  number  of  black  and  red  cards,  and  since  no  motive  on  the  part  of 
the  experimenter  can  be  assigned  for  discarding  any  drawn  card  because 
of  its  color,  this  cleft  in  the  center  of  the  curve  must  be  regarded  as  ac- 
cidental, as  a  chance  variation. 

If  the  reader  examines  the  formula?  for  the  "closeness  of  fit"  and  its 
probability,  he  learns  that  they  take  account  of  the  number  of  cases  in- 
cluded in  the  distribution.  The  same  fact  is  illustrated  in  Plate  XLIV". 
All  of  the  empirical  curves  on  the  Plate  "fit"  their  theoretical  curves 
about  equally  well,  although  Curve  C  lies  much  closer  than  the  others  to 
the  theoretical  curve.  In  Curve  C  there  are  1000  cases,  while  in  Curves 
A  and  B  there  are  but  100  cases.  In  estimating  the  degree  of  congruence 
between  an  empirical  and  its  theoretical  distribution-curve,  the  eye  can- 
not be  trusted  unless  the  distributions  compared  include  an  equal  number 


EMPIRICAL  AND  THEORETICAL  DISTRIBUTIONS  321 

of  cases  distributed  over  about  the  same  number  of  abscissae.  The 
"closeness  of  fit"  and  probability,  for  each,  are 

Curve  A,  A  =  3.07,  P  =  .4908 
Curve  B,  A  =  3.14,  P  =  .4574 
Curve  C,  A  =  3.04,    P  =  .5234 

This  is  a  medium  fit;  about  half  of  the  chance  distributions  of  similar 
kinds  may  be  expected  to  fit  as  close,  and  half  no  closer. 

Theoretically  a  run  of  100  red  cards  could  take  place,  so  that  in  the 
curve  one  case  would  be  plotted  on  abscissa  100,  or  the  run  might  be  on 
black  cards,  giving  one  set  in  which  there  were  0  red  cards.  The  chance 
of  this  occurrence  is  (J/2)100  (or,  o.jjo  zeros] 789),  but  it  did  not  take 
place  in  any  of  our  sets,  just  as  it  has  not  taken  place  in  any  reported  re- 
sults anywhere.  The  largest  number  of  red  cards  or  of  black  cards  in 
any  set  of  100  drawings  has  not  exceeded  our  scientific  limit  L  (71.2), 
and  very  seldom  exceeds  Yule's  practical  limit  of  3a  (65). 

Not  all  distributions  are  capable  of  admitting  an  exceedingly  im- 
probable event,  however.  Curve  C  is  limited,  theoretically,  at  abscissae 
0  and  10,  since  the  cards  were  drawn  in  sets  of  10.  That  all  the  drawings 
in  a  set  will  be  red  has  a  probability  of  (.5)10,  or  0.0009766;  that  is,  the 
occurrence  may  be  expected  once  in  1024  sets  and  the  same  chance  holds 
for  a  set  completely  black.  Hence  in  1024  sets  one  would  expect  two  of 
the  extreme  values.  Charlier  in  his  1000  sets  (Curve  C)  drew  no  set  of 
all  red  cards  but  he  drew  three  sets  of  0  red  cards.  The  chance  for  a  set 
of  1  red  card  or  9  red  cards  is  10  in  1024.  In  Curve  C  the  ordinate  value 
on  1  is  10,  and  on  9  is  9.  In  this  type  of  curve,  then,  which  does  not  ad- 
mit extremely  improbable  events,  we  find  the  least  probable  events  occur- 
ring about  as  often  as  the  theory  of  chances  calls  for. 

In  Plate  XLV  we  present  six  curves,  all  but  one  of  which  (Curve 
B)  have,  like  Curve  C,  in  Plate  XLIV,  for  their  limits  only  moderately 
improbable  events.  The  upper  row  shows  the  results  of  dice-throwing; 
the  lower,  of  the  drawing  of  balls  in  small  sets  of  varying  sizes.  In 
Curve  A  14G  the  value  of  p  was  % ;  in  Curve  B,146  % ;  in  Curve  C,147 
y3 ;  in  curves  D,  E  and  F,lis  %.    This  variation  in  the  value  of  p  extends 

146  A  Stanford  student,  Miss  Gwendoline  Smith,  made  1000  throws  of  two 
dice,  and  counted  the  sixes  in  each  throw.  There  were  only  three  alternatives :  o, 
I,  or  2  sixes. 

i4o  VV.  F.  R.  Weldon  (Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  eleventh  edition,  vol.  XXII, 
p.  400)  made  4096  throws  of  twelve  dice,  and  counted  the  sixes  in  each  throw. 

147  G.  U.  Yule  (An  Introduction  to  the  Theory  of  Statistics,  3d  ed.,  p.  259) 
made  648  throws  of  three  dice,  counting  both  the  fives  and  the  sixes  in  each  throw. 

148  Quetelet  (quoted  by  Yule :  ibid.,  p.  274)  drew  balls  from  a  bag  containing 
an  equal  number  of  black  and  white  balls,  returning  each  ball  before  drawing  an- 
other. Curves  D,  E,  and  F  give  the  distributions  of  the  number  of  white  balls 
drawn  in  sets  of  5,  6,  and  7  drawings. 


322 


INDUCTIVE  PROBABILITY 


the  range  of  chance  events  which  we  may  inspect  for  concordance  be- 
tween empirical  and  theoretical  probability.  In  Plate  XLII,  it  is  true,  p 
varied,  but  the  events  in  the  distributions  might  not  be  regarded  as  so 
typical  of  chance  occurrences  as  the  events  in  Plates  XLIII,  XLIV,  and 


Plate  XLV. —  Distributions  of  "chance"  events  in  the  throwing  of  Dice, 

or  drawing  of  Balls  from  a  bag. 

Curve  A.     iooo  Throws  of    2  Dice,  />  =  V«     (Miss  Smith) 

"      B.    4096        "  "    12      "      />  =  '/«     (Weldon) 

"       C.      648        *'         "     3      "     P  =  Yi     (Yule) 

"      D.      819  Sets         "     5  Balls,  p  =  Y     (Quetelet) 

"    e.    683    "        "   6    "   p  =  ya 

"      F.      585      "  "     7      "     P=*A 

XLV ;  and  in  the  former  two  p  =  .5.  The  variation  in  the  size  of  the 
sets  is  also  desirable  since  it  extends  still  further  the  range  of  chance 
events  which  we  may  inspect  for  concordances. 

The  "closeness  of  fit"  and  its  probability,  for  each  of  the  curves  are 
given  below : 


Curve 

A 

P 

A 

0.355 

•90098 

B 

2.40 

•6777 

C 

1.98 

.8660 

D 

1.94 

.8781 

E 

2.76 

.7508 

F 

2.72 

4956 

The  fits  are  close.  In  10,000  chance  distributions  such  as  that  in  Curve 
F  we  may  expect  4956  curves  to  fit  the  probability  curve  less  well ;  and 
in  100,000  such  as  that  in  Curve  A,  only  two  to  fit  as  well. 

In  Curve  B  there  was  the  possibility  of  a  value  on  abscissa  12 ;  ».  e ., 
of  a  set  of  12  dice  throwing  12  sixes.     The  probability  of  the  event  is 


EMPIRICAL  AND  THEORETICAL  DISTRIBUTIONS  323 

(Ye)12,  or  about  0.000,000,000,46;  i.  e.,  in  about  a  hundred  billion  sets  we 
could  expect  a  throw  of  12  sixes  to  occur  46  times.  There  were  4096 
throws  and  this  improbable  event  did  not  occur  once;  nor  was  there  a 
throw  of  //  sixes,  or  of  10  sixes,  or  of  9  sixes.  The  highest  number  of 
sixes  thrown  was  8,  and  although  the  probability  is  .56  that  in  4096 
throws  of  12  dice  8  sixes  will  occur,  it  occurred  only  once,  in  close  con- 
formance with  the  theory  of  chances.  There  might  have  been  no  great 
surprise  had  9  sixes  been  thrown,  since  its  probability  for  the  given  num- 
ber of  throws  is  .052,  and  could  be  expected  in  five  out  of  a  hundred  such 
series  of  throws. 

In  Curve  A,  the  least  probable  event  was  2  sixes  in  a  throw  of  two 
dice.  Its  probability  is  (%)2,  or  .0278,  and  could  be  expected  to  occur  28 
times  in  1000  throws.    It  did  occur  just  28  times. 

In  Curve  C,  the  least  probable  event  was  the  throwing  of  3  fives  and 
sixes.  Its  probability  is  (%)3,  or  .038,  and  could  be  expected  24  times  in 
648  throws.  It  occurred  30  times,  only  a  fourth  more  often  than  the  num- 
ber expected. 

In  Curve  D,  the  least  probable  event  was  the  drawing  of  5  white 
balls  or  of  0  white  balls,  in  a  set  of  five  drawings.  In  819  sets  it  could 
be  expected  to  occur  25.5  times ;  5  white  balls  occurred  27  times ;  and  0 
white  balls  occurred  30  times. 

In  Curve  E,  0  white  balls  or  6  white  balls  could  be  expected  to  occur 
10.6  times  in  683  sets ;  0  white  balls  occurred  17  times,  and  6  white  balls 
occurred  8  times.  In  Curve  F,  0  white  balls  or  7  white  balls  could  be  ex- 
pected to  occur  4.6  times  in  585  sets ;  0  white  balls  occurred  9  times,  and 
7  white  balls  occurred  4  times. 

The  tossing  of  coins  is  probably  the  most  satisfactory  means  of  pro- 
curing events  by  chance,  because  coins  are  less  likely  to  be  subject 
to  extra-chance  influences  such  as  the  possible  differences  in  surfaces  on 
balls  of  different  colors  which  might  cause  the  balls  of  one  color  to  be 
less  slippery  to  grasp  than  those  of  the  other  color,  or  the  lack  of  homo- 
geneity in  the  material  of  a  die  or  its  deviation  in  form  from  a  perfect 
cube  or  the  shifting  of  its  center  of  gravity  from  the  center  of  the  cube 
by  reason  of  the  material  milled  out  of  its  surface  for  the  spots  on  the 
sides  bearing  the  higher  numbers.  Consequently,  some  of  the  students  in 
the  writer's  class  in  elementary  statistical  methods  during  the  past  year 
tossed  coins,  as  well  as  dice,  to  procure  series  of  chance  events  with  which 
to  work. 

The  results  of  three  of  these  series  are  presented  in  Curves  A,  B,  and 
C  in  Plate  XLVI.  The  value  of  p  is  .5  throughout,  and  the  number  of 
throws  in  each  series  was  1000.    But  for  Curve  A  4  pennies  were  thrown 


324 


INDUCTIVE  PROBABILITY 


at  a  time  ;149  for  Curve  B,  5  pennies ;  and  for  Curve  C,  6  miscellaneous 
coins.  A  glance  by  an  experienced  eye  is  sufficient  to  identify  Curve  A 
as  the  only  normal  curve  of  the  three.    This  judgment  becomes  more  evi- 


Plate  XLVI. — ■  Distributions  of  "chance"  events  in   Coin-Tossing,     f  —  -S- 
Curve  A.     1000  Throws  of  4  pennies,  (Miss  Sudden) 

"      B.     1000        "  "   5        "  (a  student) 

C.     1000        "  "  6        "  (a  student) 

"      D.     1000        "  "   6  Indian  pennies,  (Calvin  Clay  Coover) 

"      E.     1000        "  "    6  Lincoln      "         (J.  E.  Coover) 

dent  if  the  Curves  D  and  E  are  included  in  the  comparison,  each  from 
1000  throws  of  6  pennies.  The  "closeness  of  fit"  and  its  probability  fol- 
low : 


Curve 

A 

P 

A 

1.52 

.8880 

B 

11. 1 

.000,000,000,000,000,000,000,005,355 

C 

10.3 

.000,000,000,000,000,000,027,7 

D  (Indian) 

0.97 

•0965 

E  (Lincoln) 

2.9 

.3867 

With  respect  to  the  least  probable  events  admissible  by  the  curves, 
in  Curve  A,  either  0  or  4  heads  could  be  expected  in  62.5  sets ;  o  heads 
occurred  60  times,  and  4  heads  occurred  62  times.  In  Curves  C,  D,  and 
E,  0  or  6  heads  could  be  expected  15.6  times ;  in  D,  0  occurred  18  times ; 
6  occurred  17  times ;  in  E,  0  occurred  12  times,  and  6  occurred  20  times ; 
but  in  Curve  C,  0  occurred  49  times,  and  6  occurred  38  times ! 


140  This   series  was   obtained  by   Miss   Anita   Sudden,   who,   like  the   others, 
counted  the  number  of  "heads"  in  each  throw. 


EMPIRICAL  AND  THEORETICAL  DISTRIBUTIONS  325 

It  was  the  shift  of  this  curve  toward  the  lower  variates  that  sug- 
gested to  the  writer  the  testing  of  the  new  Lincoln  penny  for  bias.  Ex- 
amination of  the  coin  seemed  to  indicate  that  "tails"  was  deficient  in 
metal.  He  accordingly  made  the  1000  throws  of  6  Lincoln  pennies, 
counted  the  heads  in  each  throw  and  obtained  Curve  E.  For  a  control 
series  a  like  number  of  throws  was  made  with  the  old  "Indian"  penny, 
which  seems  quite  symmetrical,  obtaining  Curve  Z).lso  Curve  E  is  also 
shifted  somewhat  toward  the  lower  variates  and  thus  encourages  further 
trials  which  we  intend  to  make  for  the  sake  of  illustrating  the  sufficiency 
of  our  method  for  identifying  a  slight  extra-chance  cause  quite  as  much 
as  for  settling  the  matter,  yet  the  amount  of  shifting  is  not  sufficient  to 
explain  the  greater  shifting  of  Curve  C;  besides,  it  was  later  determined 
that  not  Lincoln  pennies,  but  miscellaneous  coins,  had  been  used.  The 
excess  in  the  frequency  of  the  least  probable  events  in  the  latter  curve 
suggests  that  the  extra-chance  cause  demonstrated  by  the  value  of  P 
above  lies  in  faulty  perception, — incomplete  enumeration  of  heads  in  gen- 
eral, especially  when  only  one  or  two  heads  had  been  thrown,  leading  to 
an  excess  of  o  heads ;  and  the  same  oversight  with  respect  to  one  or  two 
tails,  leading  to  an  excess  of  6  heads. 

A  like  explanation  will  not  apply  to  Curve  B,  however.  A  portion 
of  the  series  must  certainly  have  been  supplied  by  good  intentions  in  lieu 
of  coin-tossing.  Its  deficiency  in  "closeness  of  fit"  might  be  expected  to 
be  equaled  by  chance  in  70  million  years  if  all  the  inhabitants  of  the 
earth  (assuming  the  population  to  be  maintained  at  2  billion  persons) 
worked  24  hours  per  day,  throwing  five  pennies  at  the  rate  of  a  throw 
every  10  seconds.161 

But  not  all  the  evidence  for  extra-chance  cause  in  empirical  "chance" 
results  can  be  credited  to  inexpert  performers.     And  so  well  have  the 


100  fhe  writer  is  indebted  to  his  wife  and  his  little  son,  Calvin  Clay  Coover, 
for  this  set.  It  furnished  them  an  evening  diversion  for  several  weeks.  But  that 
the  counting  of  heads  and  the  recording  were  painstakingly  done  the  curve  itself 
bears  witness. 

151  To  the  consternation  of  the  reader  who  is  just  now  ready  to  insist  that 
here  is  a  case  of  the  extremely  improbable  event  actually  happening,  it  may  be  re- 
marked that  the  author  of  this  distribution  had  the  misfortune,  during  the  pre- 
ceding year,  to  be  called  up  before  the  Women's  Council  and  to  be  the  occasion 
of  diplomatic  correspondence  between  the  officials  on  student  affairs.  The  Curve 
supplies  a  neat  verification  of  the  dictum  pronounced  by  Frederick  W.  H.  Myers : 

"There  is  no  choice,  I  say,  however  simple  or  arbitrary — not  even  the  choice 
between  heads  and  tails  or  odd  and  even — which  the  human  mind  can  be  trusted  to 
make  as  impartially  as  the  spun  penny  or  the  roulette-ball  would  make  it."  (Journal 
S.P.R.,  1899,  9:118-9). 


326  INDUCTIVE  PROBABILITY 

laws  of  chance  been  established  in  experience  that  that  evidence  is  rec- 
ognized and  employed  in  the  most  authoritative  quarters.  Curves  A  and 
B  in  Plate  XLVII  present  such  evidence. 

Curve  A  shows  the  distribution  of  occurrence  of  fours,  fives,  and 
sixes  in  4096  throws  of  twelve  dice  :152  and  Curve  B  the  like  occurrences 
in  6500  throws  of  twelve  dice.153  Both  curves  are  seen  to  be  shifted  to- 
ward the  higher  variates,  and  owing  to  the  large  number  of  cases  plotted 


Plate  XLVII. —  Distributions  of  "chance"  events  showing  bias  in  Dice. 
4's,  5's,  and  6's  counted,     p  =  .5. 
Curve  A.    4096  Throws  of  12  Dice     (W.  F.  R.  Weldon) 
"       B.    6500        "  "    12      "       (A.  D.  Darbishire) 

the  curves  compare  in  symmetry  very  favorably  with  the  theoretical 
curve.    The  "closeness  of  fit"  and  its  probability  are  found  to  be 

Curve  A,  A  =  5.88      P  =  .00055 
Curve  B,  A  =  6.14      P  =  .00018 

These  are  the  only  distributions  of  a  large  number  of  throws  of  twelve 
dice,  the  three  higher  numbers  of  which  were  counted  as  successes,  that 
have  come  to  the  notice  of  the  writer.  That  they  should  agree  so  closely 
in  their  deviations  from  probability  strengthens  the  evidence  which  each 
individually  presents  that  an  extra-chance  cause  is  responsible  for  those 
deviations.  Counting  the  probability  of  an  average  "closeness  of  fit" 
P  =  .5,  the  probability  of  these  two  fits  combined  is  2  X  -00055  X  .00018 
=  .000,000,198,  which  indicates  that  we  could  expect  only  about  two  such 
pairs  of  curves  in  ten  million  pairs. 

With  respect  to  the  frequency  of  the  most  improbable  events  in  the 
distributions,  either  0  successes  or  12  successes  could  be  expected  in 
Curve  A  to  occur  once  in  4096  throws  of  twelve  dice ;  neither,  however, 
occurred.  One  success  or  //  successes  could  be  expected  12  times;  / 
occurred  7  times  and  //  occurred  11  times.  In  Curve  B,  o  successes  or 
12  successes  could  be  expected  to  occur  1.6  times ;  0  occurred  1  time,  and 
12  occurred  3  times ;    while  /  or  //  could  be  expected  19  times,  /  occurred 


152  Made   by   W.   F.    R.   Weldon    ( Encyclopaedia    Britannica,   eleventh   edition, 
vol.  XXII,  p.  394;    or  Yule:    op.  cit.,  p.  258). 

158  Made  by  A.  D.  Darbishire  (Yule:    op.  cit.,  p.  274). 


EMPIRICAL  AND  THEORETICAL  DISTRIBUTIONS  327 

14  times  and  11  occurred  21  times.  The  relation  of  the  complete  distri- 
bution to  Yule's  3a  limit  for  throws  of  twelve  dice  may  be  seen  from  the 
vertical  line  on  11.2.  Thus,  although  these  curves  show  a  slight  bias  in 
the  dice,  owing  without  doubt  to  the  disproportionate  loss  of  material  in 
the  countersinking  for  the  spots  on  the  faces  bearing  four,  five,  and  six 
spots,  they  support  the  evidence  already  adduced  to  show  that  in  fre- 
quency distributions  the  occurrence  of  the  more  improbable  or  highly  im- 
probable events  conforms  very  closely  to  the  theoretical  law  of  chances. 

In  our  treatment  of  the  correspondence  between  empirical  and  the- 
oretical central  measures  we  shall  find  this  evidence  in  the  distributions 
supported. 

Wherever  we  see  empirical  distributions  of  chance  events  compared 
with  theoretical  distributions,  whatever  the  value  of  p  or  the  size  of  the 
set  in  which  the  occurrences  are  counted,  we  find  that  there  is  a  corre- 
spondence between  the  distributions  and  that  the  greater  the  number  of 
events  in  the  series  the  closer  is  the  correspondence,  just  as  is  to  be  ex- 
pected on  the  basis  of  theory.  Karl  Pearson154  has  published  four  remark- 
able distribution  curves  which  together  with  our  curves  illustrate  this  lat- 
ter fact,  since  they  are  based  upon  still  greater  numbers.  The  first  shows 
the  occurrence  of  red  counters  in  a  set  of  10  drawings  from  a  bag  con- 
taining 25  counters  each  of  red,  black,  yellow,  and  green ;  9148  sets, 
/>— .25.  The  second  shows  the  occurrence  of  hearts  in  10  cards  drawn 
at  once  from  a  full  pack;  18,600  drawings,  p  =  .25.  Both  of  these 
curves  are  skewed  curves,  since  the  mean  number  of  successes  would  be  a 
fourth  of  ten,  or  2.5,  and  while  the  lowest  number  of  successes  possible 
was  but  2.5  below  the  mean,  the  highest  number  possible  was  7.5  above 
it ;  and  both  conform  so  closely  to  their  theoretical  curves  that  to  be  dis- 
tinguished from  them  they  had  to  be  represented  by  a  line  of  dashes  be- 
tween which  appeared  regularly  the  dots  representing  the  theoretical 
curve.  The  third  curve  shows  the  occurrence  of  fives  and  sixes  in  26,306 
throws  of  12  dice,  (pz=1/3);  it  shows  on  the  intermediate  variates  a 
slight  shifting  in  conformance  with  our  curves,  but  owing  to  the  large 
number  of  throws  plotted  it  makes  a  remarkable  display  of  the  corre- 
spondence of  fact  to  theory.     Concerning  it  Pearson  said : 

We  see  that  the  two  lines  are  in  very  close  agreement.155  We  may  therefore 
conclude  that  all  the  combinations  mathematically  possible  in  tossing  12  dice  to- 
gether do  actually  occur  in  their  due  proportions  when  we  throw   12  dice  several 


154  Pearson :     The  Chances  of  Death.     London,  1897,  vol.  I,  p.  13. 

155  "Not  such  close  agreement  as  occurs  in  the  case  of  card-drawing  and 
coin-tossing,  for  dice  are  never  theoretically  perfect,  and  a  persistent  bias  has  been 
observed  in  them."     (Pearson:    op.  cit.,  p.  12). 


328 


INDUCTIVE  PROBABILITY 


thousand  times.  This  is  not  a  result  which  we  have  any  right  to  assume  before- 
hand ;  that  the  mathematically  possible  actually  does  occur  in  experiment  is  demon- 
strated and  can  only  be  demonstrated  by  actual  experience,     (pp.  12-3). 

The  fourth  curve  shows  the  occurrence  of  "heads"  in  2048  tosses  of 
10  shillings  (/>  =  %)  !   and  its  agreement  is  also  remarkable. 
After  exhibiting  these  curves,  Pearson  said  : 

When  we  take  a  large  number  of  experiments,  we  see  that,  however  unable 
we  may  be  to  predict  the  result  of  a  single  trial,  the  frequencies  of  many  trials  dis- 
tribute themselves  round'  the  mode  in  a  perfectly  orderly  manner,  and  that  the  law 
of  distribution  is  precisely  that  which  we  obtain  by  considering  all  the  combinations 
which  might  possibly  occur. 

It  is  not  theory,  but  actual  statistical  experience,  which  forces  us  to  the  con- 
clusion that,  however  little  we  know  of  what  will  happen  in  the  individual  in- 
stance, yet  the  frequency  of  a  large  number  of  instances  is  distributed  round  the 
mode  in  a  manner  more  and  more  smooth  and  uniform  the  greater  the  number  of 
individual  instances.  When  this  distribution  round  the  mode  does  not  take  place — 
as,  for  example,  at  Monte  Carlo — then  we  assert  that  some  cause  other  than  chance 
is  at  work.     (pp.  14-15). 

We  close  our  illustrations  of  frequency  distributions  with  Plate 
XLVIII,  which  presents  in  the  heavy  curve  the  frequency  of  runs  in 


Plate  XLVIII.— Runs  in  Monte  Carlo 
Roulette  (heavy  line),  in  Coin-Toss- 
ing (dotted  line),  and  to  be  expected 
by  chance  (light  line).  (Karl  Pear- 
son). 


Fig.  5.  The  arrangement  of  the  37  com- 
partments in  a  Monte  Carlo  Roulette 
Wheel.  The  black  compartments  are 
partly  filled  in ;  the  red  are  left  open ; 
zero  is  green.     (After  Pearson). 


8178  throws  of  the  roulette  ball  at  Monte  Carlo;  in  dotted  line,  the  runs 
in  a  like  number  of  tosses  of  a  coin ;  and  in  light  line,  the  number  of  runs 
to  be  expected  by  chance.  A  run  is  a  permanence  in  color  (in  roulette) 
or  in  "heads"  or  "tails"  (in  coin-tossing)  in  successive  throws;  e.g., 
with  H  for  heads  and  T  for  tails,  a  sequence  of  HTH  is  a  run  of  1  fol- 
lowed by  a  run  of  1  (two  intermittences)  ;  HTT  is  an  intermittence  fol- 
lowed by  a  run  of  2 ;    THHHHH  is  an  intermittence  followed  by  a  run 

of  5. 


EMPIRICAL  AND  THEORETICAL  DISTRIBUTIONS  329 

Now  the  roulette  is  a  cylinder  containing  37  compartments  arranged 
as  is  shown  in  Fig.  5. 

This  is  spun  by  the  croupier,  and  while  it  is  still  rotating  a  ball  is  projected 
in  the  opposite  direction  to  the  rotation  on  a  circular  path  above  the  cylinder,  and 
sloping  towards  its  center ;  from  this  path  the  ball  ultimately  rolls  off  into  one  of 
the  37  compartments.  The  apparatus  is  supposed  to  be  made  with  extreme  accuracy, 
and  to  be  readjusted  with  the  greatest  care  before  the  table  is  used.  Admitting 
the  mechanical  accuracy  of  the  instrument,  and  remembering  the  keen  and  watch- 
ful eyes  of  the  numerous  players,  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  a  machine  better  cal- 
culated to  illustrate  the  laws  of  chance  than  a  Monte  Carlo  roulette.156 

To  it  Professor  Pearson  accordingly  turned  for  illustrative  material 
for  popular  lectures  on  the  laws  of  chance : 

In  my  enthusiasm  Monte  Carlo  appeared  to  me  in  a  new  light ;  it  was  clearly 
a  scientific  laboratory  preparing  material  for  the  natural  philosopher.  How  to  ob- 
tain this  material  in  a  workable  form  was  the  next  problem.  To  spend  several 
months  at  Monte  Carlo  recording  the  spin  of  the  roulette  was  personally  an  im- 
possibility, nor  did  it  seem  likely  that  the  Royal  Society  or  the  British  Association 
would  award  a  grant  to  pay  the  expenses  of  an  agent  engaged  in  such  a  novel  form 
of  scientific  investigation.  Luckily,  however,  further  inquiry  led  to  the  discovery 
that  the  records  of  the  tables  are  published  in  a  special  journal  entitled  Le  Monaco, 
and  issued  weekly  in  Paris  at  the  price  of  a  franc. 

He  tabulated  the  16,500  throws  for  four  weeks  in  July  and  August, 
1892,  and  had  another  similar  amount  tabulated  for  him,  making  33,000 
"chance"  events.  He  first  determined  the  relative  occurrence  of  red  and 
black,  which  we  reserve  for  later  treatment ;  then  he  determined  the  fre- 
quency with  which  the  several  numbers  occurred,  his  further  considera- 
tion of  which  we  shall  presently  quote,  and  said: 

At  this  result  I  felt  somewhat  taken  aback.  I  did  not  immediately  assume 
that  the  laws  of  chance  did  not  apply  to  Monte  Carlo  roulette,  but  I  considered 
myself  very  unfortunate  to  have  hit  upon  a  month  of  roulette  which  was  so  im- 
probable in  its  characteristics  that  it  would  only  occur,  on  the  average,  once  in 
167,000  years  of  continuous  roulette-playing.  Such  were  clearly  not  the  most  suit- 
able returns  for  illustrating  the  laws  of  chance!      (pp.  52-3). 

Not  wishing  to  put  aside  as  useless  my  very  improbable  month's  returns  I 
determined  to  treat  them  in  another  manner ;  namely,  to  investigate  how  closely 
the  runs,  that  is,  successions  of  numbers,  of  the  same  color,  were  in  accord  with 
theory,     (p.  53). 

The  values  obtained  are  shown  in  the  above  curve  as  far  as  a  run  of 
8  colors.  The  standard  deviation  (a)  was  calculated  for  each  run  and 
with  it  were  compared  the  deviations  of  the  empirical  from  the  theoretical 


166  Pearson :     The  scientific  aspect  of  Monte  Carlo  roulette,  in  "The  Chances 
of  Death,"  vol.  I,  p.  47- 


6 

7 

S 

9 

w 

II 

/.? 

8 

6 

4 

3 

2 

1.5 

I 

M 

10 

13 

4 

3 

3 

0 

3 

7 

I 

4 

I 

2 

0 

330  INDUCTIVE   PROBABILITY 

frequencies.     The  runs  in  a  control  series  of  coin-tossing,  obtained  by 
Mr.  Griffith,  were  similarly  treated.     The  results  follow: 

TABLE  LXXXII. 

Runs     /      2      3      4      5 

a    33    28    22     16     12 

Roulette     325  123  201     47       I 

Coin-tossing    68      8    45     22     11 

Professor  Pearson  observed : 

Whenever  an  actual  deviation  reaches  three  to  four  times  the  standard  devia- 
tion, we  are  approaching  the  very  improbable.  [Our  limit  L,  it  will  be  remembered, 
is  4.24  X  o].  In  the  case  of  the  tossing,  the  actual  deviation  is  slightly  over  twice 
the  standard  deviation  on  two  occasions  [on  runs  I  and  3]  ;  in  the  case  of  the  roulette, 
on  one  occasion  the  actual  deviation  is  nearly  ten  times  the  standard  deviation,  on 
another  occasion  nine  times  the  standard,  on  a  third  occasion  four  times,  and  twice 
it  is  three  times  it.  The  odds  are  thousand  millions  to  one  against  such  a  deviation 
as  nine  or  ten  times  the  standard.1-'7  If  Monte  Carlo  roulette  had  gone  on  since 
the  beginning  of  geologic  time  on  this  earth,  we  should  not  have  expected  such  an 
occurrence  as  this  fortnight's  play  to  have  occurred  once  on  the  supposition  that  the 
game  is  one  of  chance.  My  doubts  as  to  the  applicability  of  theory  to  predict  the 
averages  in  Monte  Carlo  roulette  were  now  fairly  aroused,  but  I  determined  to  get, 
if  possible,  independent  confirmation  of  my  results.  My  pupil,  Mr.  L.  Giblin,  tab- 
ulated for  me  the  runs  of  a  second  fortnight's  play,  with  the  result  that  his  fort- 
night was  so  improbable  that  it  was  only  to  be  expected  once  in  5000  years  of  con- 
tinuous roulette.  Nothing  like  as  bad  a  fortnight  as  mine,  but  quite  inconsistent 
with  a  reasonable  man's  applying  the  laws  of  chance  to  Monte  Carlo  roulette. 
Finally,  Mr.  de  Whalley  investigated  7976  throws  of  the  ball,  forming  a  fortnight's 
play  at  a  slightly  later  date  than  my  returns.  There  resulted  deviations  4.63,  4.62, 
and  4.44  times  the  standard  deviation,  or  odds  of  upwards  of  263,000  to  I  against 
such  a  result.  That  one  such  fortnight  of  runs  should  have  occurred  in  the  year 
1892  might  be  looked  upon  as  a  veritable  miracle ;  that  three  should  have  occurred 
is  absolutely  conclusive.  Roulette  as  played  at  Monte  Carlo  is  not  a  scientific  game 
of  chance. 

Such  results  as  those  published  in  Lc  Monaco  give  the  deathblow  to  the 
mathematician's  theory  of  the  random  spinning  of  a  mechanically  accurate  roulette. 
The  man  of  science  may  proudly  predict  the  results  of  tossing  halfpence,  but  the 
Monte  Carlo  roulette  confounds  his  theories  and  mocks  at  his  laws! 

It  remains,  if  possible,  to  localize  the  exact  points  in  which  Monte  Carlo 
roulette  rebels  against  theory.  Mr.  de  Whalley  has  kindly  tabulated  for  me  the 
runs  of  odd  and  even  numbers  in  4052  throws,  with  the  result  that  the  actual  devia- 
tion is  on  only  one  occasion  larger,  and  then  only  very  slightly  larger,  than  the 
standard.     Thus  we  see  that  the  totals  of  red  and  black  and  the  succession  of  odd 


157  "The  odds  against  a  deviation  even  six  times  the  standard  deviation  are 
more  than  a  thousand  million  to  one !" 


EMPIRICAL  AND  THEORETICAL  DISTRIBUTIONS  331 

and  even  numbers,  are  obedient  to  the  laws  of  chance;  the  special  numbers  them- 
selves are  in  all  probability  occasionally  very  chaotic;  the  succession  of  reds  and 
blacks,  however,  sets  the  lazvs  of  chance  at  defiance  in  the  most  persistent  and  re- 
markable manner. 

The  abnormal  character  of  these  results  may  be  clearly  summed  up  in  the 
words,  "superabundance  of  intermittences  and  deficiency  of  small  permanences." 
Short  runs  are  deficient,  and  the  color  changes  much  more  frequently  than  the  laws 
of  chance  prescribe,     (pp.  54-7). 

In  the  tabulation  of  the  occurrences  of  the  respective  roulette  num- 
bers in  16,563  trials  Professor  Pearson  found  that: 

The  deviations  from  the  average  in  the  distribution  of  the  individual  numbers 
are  less  than  we  should  expect.  There  is  a  tendency  to  come  nearer  the  average 
than  the  laws  of  chance  would  allow  of ;  the  totals,  to  be  paradoxical,  are  too  near 
the  most  probable  result  to  be  themselves  scientifically  probable.  .  .  .  The  reader 
cannot  be  too  often  reminded  that  what  is  popularly  termed  "chance"  may  be  chaos 
or  it  may  be  design,  but  it  cannot  be  scientifically  chance  unless  the  improbable  hap- 
pens in  its  due  proportions.158  The  absence  of  the  improbable,  the  redundancy  of 
the  probable,  is  just  as  much  conclusive  evidence  against  conformity  with  scientific 
law  as  the  too  frequent  occurrence  of  the  improbable  itself,     (pp.  60-61). 

To  sum  up,  then :  Monte  Carlo  roulette,  if  judged  by  returns  which  are  pub- 
lished without  apparently  being  repudiated  by  the  Societe,  is,  if  the  laws  of  chance 
rule,  from  the  standpoint  of  exact  science  the  most  prodigious  miracle  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  Yet  even  the  supernatural  would  be  discredited  by  fortnightly  re- 
currences ;  we  are  forced  to  accept  as  an  alternative  that  the  random  spinning  of  a 
roulette  manfactured  and  daily  adjusted  with  extraordinary  care  is  not  obedient  to 
the  laws  of  chance,  but  is  chaotic  in  its  manifestations,     (p.  6l).1S9 

If  we  apply  to  the  empirical  curves  in  Plate  XLVIII  the  formulae 
for  "closeness  of  fit"  and  its  probability,  we  get 

Coin-tossing,  A  =    4.25       P=.II42 
Roulette,  A  =  13.7        P  =  .[42  zeros] 1355 

And  if  we  inspect  the  distributions  for  the  occurrence  of  the  least  prob- 
able events  we  find  that,  although  there  was  opportunity  for  a  run  of  8177 


158  Italics  are  inserted  by  the  writer. 

159  Professor  Pearson  tells  us  in  a  footnote  (op.  cit.,  pp.  57-8)  that  since  the 
above  was  written,  he  has  investigated  the  runs  of  color  at  various  places  and 
times:  (1)  in  18,355  coups  in  Rouge  et  Noir,  made  at  Saxon-les-Baines  some  thirty 
years  earlier,  he  found  the  distribution  of  runs  "perfectly  normal."  (2)  In  "sev- 
eral thousand"  coups  in  Roulette,  made  at  Monte  Carlo  in  1885,  he  found  the  runs 
"slightly  improbable."  (3)  In  31,074  coups  in  roulette,  made  in  October  and  No- 
vember 1887,  at  Monte  Carlo,  he  found  "a  deviation  in  intermittences  of  273,  and 
this  equals  3.6  times  the  standard  deviation  (75-71),"  the  odds  being  "5000  to  one 
against  such  an  excess  of  intermittences.  We  may  conclude,  therefore,  that  the 
Monte  Carlo  returns  were  beginning  to  be  mathematically  improbable  in  1887,  al- 
though they  were  not  then  so  miraculous  as  in  1892." 


332  INDUCTIVE  PROBABILITY 

sequences  of  a  single  color,  as  well  as  for  a  run  of  each  smaller  number 
down  to  13,  none  of  these  highly  improbable  runs  were  made.  The  high- 
est number  of  sequences  was  12,  which  occurred  in  accordance  with 
theory  just  once,  in  the  roulette  series,  as  it  occurred  just  once  in  the  coin- 
tossing  series. 

The  concordance  of  the  runs  obtained  in  coin-tossing,  shown  above, 
with  the  runs  prescribed  by  the  laws  of  chance,  is  matched  by  the  con- 
cordance of  fact  with  theory  in  a  more  complicated  treatment  of  4096 
throws  of  a  penny  made  by  Miss  Alice  Johnson.160  She  divided  her  whole 
series  into  "cycles"  in  which  the  first  event  was  an  H  following  a  T,  and 
the  final  event  was  the  last  T  preceding  an  H ;  thus,  her  first  17  throws 
were  divided  into  the  following  5  cycles ;  HHHTT,  HT,  HHT,  HTTT, 
HHT.  There  was  a  total  of  1014  cycles.  These  she  tabulated  and  put  in 
a  table  showing:  "(1)  The  number  of  runs  of  different  lengths  of  both 
alternatives  H  and  T,  and  (2),  in  the  case  of  one  alternative,  H,  the  runs 
of  each  length  subdivided  to  show  what  length  of  run  of  the  other  alter- 
native they  were  followed  by."  Each  entry  in  the  table  is  accompanied  by 
its  theoretical  value  as  derived  from  the  law  of  chances.  The  general 
concordance  of  the  empirical  values  with  the  theoretical  is  striking,  even 
for  the  less  probable  events.  There  are  nine  events  that  are  to  be  ex- 
pected but  once ;  they  occurred  0,  2,  1,  1,  1,  1,  0,  0,  0,  times,  respectively. 
Eight  events  are  to  be  expected  twice ;  they  occurred  0,  0,  /,  J,  2,  1,  2,  2, 
times,  respectively.  Theoretically,  the  highest  run  of  H's  or  T's  is  12 ; 
the  highest  run  of  T's  was  10,  of  H's,  15.  For  the  latter  event  P  = 
.0000298 ;  it  could  be  expected  to  occur  298  times  in  ten  million  throws, 
or  once  in  about  33,500  throws.  Another  highly  improbable  event  re- 
corded in  the  table  is  a  run  of  8  H's  succeeded  by  a  run  of  8  T's:  P  = 
.00001526;  it  could  be  expected  to  occur  once  in  about  66,000  throws, 
and  is  slightly  less  probable  than  the  scientifically  acceptable  limit  of 
chance  deviation  (P=  .0000221). 

Miss  Johnson  observed  that  her  table  of  complex  events 

...  is  a  further  illustration  of  the  fact  that  the  larger  the  series,  the  smaller  in 
proportion  become  the  deviations  from  theory.  .  .  .  [The]  closer  correspondence 
with  theory  is  only  found  in  the  case  of  events  having  a  comparatively  large  prob- 
ability. .  .  . 

Another  feature  which  is  rather  surprising  at  first  sight  is  the  exact  correspond- 
ence with  theory  of  some  among  the  very  long  cycles.  It  will,  however,  be  seen  on 
consideration  that,  although  the  relative  deviation  from  probability  in  the  case  of 
these  very  large  cycles  is  likely  to  be  often  great,  the  absolute  deviation  is  likely  to  be 
almost  always  small,  so  that  there  is  really  a  greater  chance  of  such  exact  corre 
spondences  occurring  than  in  the  case  of  the  shorter  cycles.  ...   (p.  190). 


leo  Alice  Johnson  :     Coincidences.    Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  1899,  14  :  188  ff. 


EMPIRICAL  AND  THEORETICAL  CENTRAL    MEASURES  333 

And  she  concluded : 
'  If,  then,  we  were  trying  to  judge  whether  there  was  evidence  of  any  agency 
beyond' chance  in  an  actual  series  of  this  kind,  we  should  have  to  be  very  cautious 
in  drawing  conclusions  from  these  apparently  remarkable  occurrences,  unless  they 
were  very  numerous,  l  We  should  be  on  much  safer  ground  in  dealing  only  with 
the  deviations  from  the  theoretical  results  shown  by  the  shorter  cycles.  Similarly, 
a  few  extraordinary  coincidences,  though  much  more  striking  to  the  imagination, 
afford  much  less  reliable  evidence  of  something  beyond  chance  than  a  large  number 
of  trivial  ones  all  pointing  in  the  same  direction,     (p.  IO-0- 

It  seems  reasonable  to  conclude  from  this  exhibit  of  the  correspond- 
ences between  empirical  and  theoretical  distributions  ( I )  that,  when  the 
value  of  p  lies  within  the  range  of  .02-.98,  chance  events  empirically 
derived  distribute  themselves  about  the  most  probable  number  in  accord- 
ance with  the  mathematical  law  of  chances,  (2)  that  the  least  probable 
events  permitted  by  the  distribution  conform  in  their  frequency  to  this 
generalization,  (3)  that  the  highly  improbable  events  may  be  practically 
disregarded,  as,  indeed,  the  theory  of  chances  teaches,  and  (4)  that  the 
available  formulae  for  testing  a  distribution  of  empirical  events  for  extra- 
chance  disturbance,  which  have  been  sufficiently  verified  in  experience  to 
be  confidently  employed  by  the  foremost  scientists,  may  be  safely  and 
profitably  employed  in  the  field  of  psychical  research  where  it  is  especi- 
ally essential  to  determine  whether  alleged  extra-chance  causes  are 
present. 

Empirical  and  Theoretical  Central  Measures. 

When  a  number  of  measures  are  reduced  to  an  average,  or  the 
arithmetical  mean  (M),  it  is  customary  to  accompany  this  central  measure 
with  a  value  which  indicates  its  reliability.  Sometimes  the  latter  value,  to 
be  regarded  as  a  coefficient  of  precision,  is  given  in  the  form  of  the 
mean  variation  (MV),  which  is  the  average  of  the  deviations  of  the 
individual  measures  from  their  mean,  but  more  generally  it  is  given 
in  the  form  of  the  "probable  error"  (PE),lel  which  is  a  deviation  from 
the  mean  that  may  be  expected  to  include  one-half  of  the  means  found 
from  any  number  of  further  series  of  measurements  of  the  same  thing. 
Now,  this  more  generally  used  coefficient  of  precision  is  based  upon  the 
empirical  standard  deviation  (a)*  and  relates  the  mean  to  the  distribution 
of  the  values  from  which  it  is  obtained.    It  is  an  application  of  the  law  of 

/2<5S 

*o=  \ in  which  8  is  the  deviation  of  the  individual  measure   from  the 

mean,  2  is  the  sign  of  summation,  and  n  is  the  number  of  measures  in  the  series 
averaged.  a 

i«i  p£  =  .674S  — ~    - 

Vn 


334  INDUCTIVE   PROBABILITY 

chances  to  an  empirical  measure  for  the  purpose  of  indicating  the  pre- 
cise range  (M-PE  to  M  +  PE)  within  which  the  true  (but  unknown) 
mean  may  be  expected  with  a  probability  of  .5  to  lie.  It  is  derived  from 
the  standard  deviation  because  the  latter  has  become  the  customary 
"measure  of  dispersion"  162  of  empirical  measures,  by  the  use  of  which 
any  deviation  from  the  mean  may  be  related  to  the  distribution,  and  its 
probability  determined. 

When  the  empirical  measures  are  obtained  by  chance,  as  in  coin- 
tossing,  their  dispersion  is  known  to  be  the  result  of  the  errors  due  to 
"simple  sampling,"  163  as  dispersion  is  assumed  to  be  in  the  other  empir- 
ical measures,  and  the  standard  deviation  (a)  as  a  measure  of  dispersion 
becomes  the  "standard  error,"  164  an  instrument  for  the  determination  of 
the  probability  of  the  presence  of  an  extra-chance  cause.  The  mean  is 
known,  being  determined  a  priori  by  np.  When  an  empirical  deviation 
from  the  mean  is  greater  than  4.24  times  the  standard  deviation,  it  is  re- 
garded as  exceeding  the  limit  of  chance  deviation  (L), — as  falling  beyond 
the  theoretical  distribution  of  chance  events.  When  it  is  less  than  40,  its 
probability  by  chance  can  be  determined  from  a  table  of  the  probability 
values  arranged  for  x/a.lis  Thus  we  have  a  definite  means  based  upon  the 
law  of  chances,  for  testing  empirical  central  measures  for  the  determina- 
tion of  extra-chance  influence.  It  is  part  and  parcel  of  the  general 
statistical  procedure  everywhere  in  use  in  the  established  sciences.  Should 
some  procedure  based  upon  inductive  probability  be  claimed  to  be  more 
applicable  than  this  in  the  field  of  psychical  research,  a  presumption 
would  thereby  be  made  that  psychical  research  differs  in  some  essential 
way  from  other  scientific  research,  and  the  claim  could  be  maintained 
only  by  establishing  this  presumption.     Practically  such  a  claim  can  be 


162  Yule :     An  Introduction  to  the  Theory  of  Statistics.     3d  ed.,  pp.  142  ff. 
183  Vide,  Yule  :     Ibid.,  pp.  254  ff. 

164  Idem,  p.  267.  The  theoretical  "standard  deviation"  is :  a  =  ^  pqn,  if  ex- 
pressed in  absolute  numbers;    0=  V pq/n,  if  expressed  as  a  ratio  of  n. 

165  This  procedure  assumes  a  symmetrical  distribution  (i.e.,  p=q  =  .5)  and 
introduces  an  error  that  becomes  greater  as  the  value  of  p  departs  from  the  value 
of  q.  but  that  is  practically  negligible  down  to  p  =  .025,  as  may  be  seen  by  refer- 
ence to  Plate  V  (p.  99,  supra),  0=  ^pqn  =  V.025  X  .975  X  50  =  1.105,  30  =  3-3 '5. 
and  M  + 3a  =  4.565.  The  distribution  is  almost  wholly  below  this  (Yule's)  rough 
limit;  and,  as  may  be  learned  from  Table  XLI  (p.  89.  supra),  the  scientific  limit 
(L)  of  deviation  (Vide,  pp.  82  f.,  supra)  is  4.96,  making  M  +  L  =  6.21,  which  is 
above  the  whole  distribution,  since,  as  is  shown  in  Table  XLI  1 1  (p.  97,  supra),  the 
greatest  number  of  R  cases  in  a  set  was  6.  If  greater  precision  is  desired  in  the  de- 
termination of  the  probability  of  a  deviation.  Bernoulli's  Theorem  may  be  used  as 
illustrated  on  pp.  80  ff.,  supra. 


EMPIRICAL   AND  THEORETICAL   CENTRAL    MEASURES  335 

offset  by  the  exhibition  of  the  concordance  between  empirical   central 
measures  and  theoretical  expectation. 

Before  examining  our  empirical  central  measures,  however,  let  us 
review  a  classical  instance  of  the  application  of  inductive  probability  to 
the  results  of  psychical  research  investigation. 

On  page  34,  supra,  we  said,  "But  Preyer  showed  that  the  deviations 
from  probability  upon  which  Richet  had  based  his  conclusions  are  not  only 
equaled  but  surpassed  by  experimental  chance  ( in  lottery  drawings  in 
series  of  equal  length  to  that  of  Richet),"  taking  Preyer  at  his  own  rep- 
resentation. And  on  page  49,  supra,  we  quoted  the  results  of  one  of 
Richet's  series  of  guessing  upon  the  suit  of  playing-cards,  the  probability 
of  which  Edgeworth  found  to  be  0.008;  there  were  2927  trials  and  789 
(27%,  an  excess  of  2%)  R  guesses,  from  which  we  calculate  the  ratio  of 
the  excess  per  cent  of  R  cases  to  the  limit  of  chance  deviation  (x/L) 
to  be  0.59,  and  the  probability  by  the  x/a  method  to  be  0.0073.  1°  10,000 
series,  such  as  Richet  had,  we  should  expect  only  yT>  °f  them  to  show 
chance  deviations  greater  than  +2%  ;  yet  the  deviation  is  only  59%  of  the 
limit  of  chance  acceptable  to  science. 

Now,  since  Preyer's  criticism  is  well  known,  and  since  only  one  of 
Richet's  many  series  has  been  referred  to  in  this  monograph,  the  reader 
might  reasonably  infer  that  upon  the  basis  of  inductive  probability  Rich- 
et's conclusions,  based  upon  theoretical  probability,  have  been  once  and 
for  all  overthrown.  Against  this  inference  the  writer  wishes  to  suggest 
two  reasons  for  caution.  In  the  first  place,  Richet's  more  striking  results, 
not  quoted  or  reviewed  in  this  volume  because  they  were  obtained  in  ex- 
periments which  were  not  similar  to  any  of  ours,  are  much  less  probably 
due  to  chance  than  the  results  of  the  series  quoted.  In  the  second  place, 
Preyer's  procedure  in  making  the  comparison  between  Richet's  results 
and  the  results  of  lottery-drawings  does  not  seem  satisfactory ;  from  his 
own  figures  (op.  cit.,  pp.  66-7)  the  deviations  of  Richet's  results  may  be 
shown  to  exceed  those  of  the  lottery  results. 

Accepting  the  questionable  method  of  aggregating  the  results  of 
Preyer's  18  listed  series  of  Richet's  experiments  in  which  p  varies  through 
17  gradations  from  0.5  to  0.0128,  we  start,  with  Preyer,  with  8670  cases, 
2177  R  cases,  and  2019  the  most  probable  number  of  R  cases;  from  the 
latter  we  get  p  =  .233  (23.3%),  and  the  other  values  in  the  first  line  in 
Table  LXXXIII,  infra,  And  taking  the  average  of  the  R  cases  per  8670 
drawings  for  the  12  series  selected  by  Preyer  from  the  record  of  the 
"konigl.  Sachsischen  Lotterie"  for  May  1885,  we  get  193  or  2.22%  as 
against  the  probability  of  2%,  from  which  we  calculate  the  rest  of  the 
values  in  the  2d  line  of  the  table.    While  the  excess  of  R  cases  over  prob- 


336  INDUCTIVE  PROBABILITY 

ability  in  Richet's  aggregated  results  comes  very  close  to  the  limit  of 
chance  deviation  (x/L  =  .910),  and,  by  the  x/a  method,  may  be  expected 
to  be  exceeded  by  only  12  plus  and  minus  chance  deviations  in  100,000 
aggregates  such  as  Richet's,  the  average  excess  of  R  cases  in  the  selected 
series  of  lottery  drawings  amounts  to  only  34%  of  the  limit  of  chance 
deviation,  and  may  be  expected  to  be  exceeded  by  14,430  plus  and  minus 
chance  deviations  in  100,000  averages. 

TABLE  LXXXIII. 

n             R  p  x  x/L  x/a           P 

1.  Richct   8670  .2510  .233  .0180  0.910  3.85  .00012 

2.  Lottery    8670  .0222  .020  .0022  0.344  1.46  .14430 

3.  Richet   657  .2290  .167  .0620  1.005  426  .00002 

4.  Lottery    8670  .0235  .020  .0035  0.550  2.33  .00990 

If  we  appeal  from  aggregates  and  averages,  and  inspect  the  largest 
deviations  in  the  two  tables  of  contrasted  results,  we  find  equally  decisive 
evidence  for  the  superiority  of  Richet's  results.  In  the  table  of  Richet's 
results  is  a  series  of  657  guesses;  R  cases  =  22.9%,  p  =  i6.y%,  excess 
=  6.2%.  The  excess,  as  is  shown  in  the  3d  line  of  the  table  above,  just 
exceeds  the  limit  of  chance  deviation  (x/L),  and  is  decisive  in  indicating 
an  extra-chance  cause  working  for  R  cases.  Only  2  chance  deviations 
out  of  100,000  such  series  may  be  expected  to  equal  or  exceed  it.  The 
largest  deviation  in  the  lottery  series  is  0.35%  (p  =  2%),  which,  as  is 
shown  in  the  4th  line  of  the  table  above  is  only  55%  of  the  limit  of  chance 
deviation  and  may  be  expected  to  be  exceeded  by  990  positive  chance  de- 
viations in  100,000  series  of  lottery  drawings. 

The  conclusions  drawn  by  Preyer  were  based  upon  a  comparison  of 
the  x/p  values,  which,  because  of  the  difference  in  the  values  of  p,  was 
unsound  procedure.     More  comparable  values  would  have  been  x/\/p-p2. 

This  classical  instance  of  the  use  of  an  inductive  probability  to  test 
the  results  of  experiments  in  thought-transference  fails  not  only  in  its 
specific  purpose,  but  also  in  revealing  any  empirical  deviations  which  are 
not  to  be  expected  from  theoretical  probability,  or  any  characteristics 
which  commend  an  inductive  probability  over  the  theoretical  probability 
as  an  instrument  for  testing  for  an  extra-chance  cause  the  results  of  ex- 
periments the  conditions  of  which  indicate  the  probability  of  a  single  oc- 
currence. 

Let  us  now  examine  our  empirical  central  measures  of  chance 
events.  It  will  be  recalled  that  while  we  were  examining  the  distributions 
of  empirical  chance  events  we  took  occasion  to  inquire  whether  the  highly 
improbable  events  occur,  and  whether  the  least  probable  events  which 


EMPIRICAL  AND  THEORETICAL   CENTRAL    MEASURES  337 

actually  did  occur  occurred  with  a  frequency  demanded  by  theoretical 
probability.  These  events  were  single  measures,  and  our  judgment  con- 
cerning them  depended  upon  their  relation  to  the  limiting  values  of  the 
theoretical  distribution.  If  the  largest  positive  deviation  in  any  empirical 
distribution  was  not  greater  than  the  laws  of  chance  call  for,  but  was 
approximately  as  great,  or  if  the  largest  possible  deviation  occurred  ap- 
proximately as  often  as  theory  demands,  these  empirical  deviations  were 
regarded  as  supporting  the  theoretical  law  of  chances  by  which  they  could 
be  safely  predicted.  When  the  largest  empirical  deviations  from  the 
mean  occurred  much  more  often  than  theory  allowed  (as  in  Curve  B, 
Plate  XLVI),1**  it  was  confidently  stated  that  they  were  disturbed  by 
extra-chance  causes,  as  was  justified  by  the  conformance  of  all  carefully 
acquired  empirical  distributions  with  their  theoretical  distributions.  Now, 
a  central  measure,  the  mean,  or  the  per  cent  of  R  cases,  is  a  similar 
single  measure  which  belongs  to  a  distribution  of  empirical  means  and 
can  be  tested  in  precisely  the  same  way.  Should  a  mean  fall  beyond  the 
limit  of  the  theoretical  distribution  to  which  it  belongs,  it  would  be  re- 
garded as  being  disturbed  by  an  extra-chance  cause.  Should  it  fall  within 
its  theoretical  distribution,  its  probability  can  be  found  just  as  the  prob- 
ability of  any  event  in  a  distribution  can  be  found.  If  the  empirical 
central  measures  which  are  available  for  our  inspection  are  found  to  con- 
form to  theory,  both  theoretical  probability  and  the  formulae  applicable 
to  central  measures  will  receive  confirmation. 

i.  In  the  guessing  of  Lotto-Block  numbers  there  were  two  series  of 
approximately  500  guesses,  one  of  them  being  a  "Number  Imaged"  series. 
Assuming  that  chance  causes  were  undisturbed  in  the  production  of  R 
cases,  we  have  in  Table  III  (p.  39,  supra)  twelve  empirical  central  meas- 
ures of  chance  events.  Each  is  the  mean  number  of  R  cases  per  guess,  or 
the  per  cent  of  R  guesses.  The  theoretical  mean  is  the  probability  of  an 
R  case  by  chance,  expressed  in  per  cent ;  and  the  difference  between  these 
two  values  we  may  call  x.  In  the  following  table  we  display  these  twelve 
empirical  measures  together  with  the  other  values  mentioned  from  which 
we  calculate  the  probability  that  they  are  caused  by  chance  (P). 

We  note  in  the  x/a  column  only  one  value  greater  than  unity,  which, 
to  be  significant,  should  be  as  great  as  4.24.  And  in  the  P  column  we  see 
that  the  probability  is  high  enough  in  all  cases  to  exclude  the  hypothesis 
of  extra-chance  cause.  The  12  central  measures  of  R  cases  in  the  guess- 
ing of  Lotto-Block  numbers  conform  to  the  expectation  for  chance 
events. 

2.  In  the  last  column  of  Table  I  (p.  38,  supra)  we  have  ten  aggre- 

188  Supra,  p.  324. 


338 


INDUCTIVE   PROBABILITY 


TABLE  LXXXIV. 


R 

Whole  number  Number  Imaged i.oo 

Number  not  Imaged..  1.18 

Ten's  digit  Number  Imaged 12.8 

Number  not  Imaged 11. 1 

Unit's  digit   Number  Imaged 12.2 

Number  not  Imaged 9.1 

Ten's  for  Unit's   Number   Imaged....  6.6 

Number  not   Imaged  7.4 

Unit's   for  Ten's   Number   Imaged....  6.0 

Number  not   Imaged  8.0 

Transposed   Number   Imaged 1.23 

Number  not   Imaged 0.80 


p 

X 

x/a 

P* 

1-23 

0.23 

■47 

638 

123 

0.05 

.0102 

592 

12-5 

0.3 

.205 

837 

12-5 

i-4 

.96 

337 

1 0.0 

2.2 

1-5 

134 

1 0.0 

0.9 

67 

503 

6.9 

03 

.265 

79i 

6.9 

0.5 

■44 

660 

6.9 

0.9 

79 

•430 

6.9 

1.1 

■97 

•332 

0.85 

0.38 

925 

•355 

0.85 

0.05 

.122 

903 

gates  of  the  occurrences  of  blanks  drawn  from  the  bag  in  100  experi- 
ments ;  p  =  .5  ;  they  range  from  41-57  ;  the  deviations  (x)  are  -9  to  +7  ; 
x/a  for  these  limiting  deviations  is  1.8  and  1.4  respectively,  giving  a  prob- 
ability (P)  of  0.07186  and  0.16152  respectively,  that  they  are  chance  de- 
viations. These  are  the  central  values,  for  a  set  of  100  experiments, 
which  deviate  most  from  the  theoretical  central  value.  If  we  consider 
the  central  value  for  the  whole  series  of  experiments  (1000),  502,  or 
50.2%,  we  find  x  1=0.2%,  .r/a  =  0.126,  P=  .8997.  All  of  these  empir- 
ical central  measures,  then,  fall  well  within  the  theoretical  distribution,  the 
scientific  limit  of  which,  it  must  be  constantly  remembered,  demands  that 
x/a  is  as  large  as  4.24,  or  that  P  is  as  small  as  .0000221. 

3.  In  Tables  IV  and  VI  (pp.  39-40  supra)  we  have,  in  the  last  col- 
umn, the  occurrences  of  the  respective  digits,  in  unit's  place,  in  500  draw- 
ings of  Lotto-Blocks  from  the  bag.  There  are  20  cases ;  the  range  is 
37-65;  p=i;  x  =  -13  and  +15  ;  x/a  =  1.93  and  2.23;  P  =  0.05360 
and  0.02574.  These  20  central  empirical  measures  fall  well  within  the 
theoretical  distribution. 

4.  In  Table  X  (p.  42,  supra)  we  have  the  chance  occurrence  of  the 
respective  die-spots  in  500  throws.  There  are  12  cases;  P  =  %.  The 
central  measures  (the  number  of  occurrences)  range  from  71  to  95  and 
deviate  from  the  theoretical  central  measure  (83)  as  much  as  -12  and 
+12;  for  these  minimal  and  maximal  values,  .1-/0=1.44,  P-- 14986. 
In  Tables  LI  (p.  126,  supra)  and  XXII  (p.  70),  we  have  the  like  occur- 
rences in  sets  of  1000  and  9800  throws  respectively ;    and  if  we  add  to 


*  The  number  under  P  expresses  the  probability  that  the  x  is  a  chance  devia- 
tion ;    e.  g.  the  first  P  value  indicates  that  the  probability  of  the  x  value  of  0.23 

being  a  chance  deviation  is  .638  in   1  ;    or  that  of  1000  such  values  638  chance  de- 

+  00 
viations  may  be  expected  to  be  larger  than  x.    P  =  ~S,x/a  . 


EMPIRICAL   AND  THEORETICAL   CENTRAL    MEASURES  339 

the  data  included  in  these  three  tables,  those  of  the  experiments  on  "The 
Feeling-  of  Being  Stared  At,"  we  shall  have  a  set  of  14,600  throws,  in 
which  the  die-spots  occurred  as  follows : 

1,  2502  j,  2491  5,  2480 

-'•  2350  4,  2349  <5.  2428 

While  the  most  probable  number  is  2433.  Now,  if  we  calculate  the  prob- 
ability (P)  of  the  largest  negative  deviation  and  the  largest  positive  de- 
viation of  the  central  measures  obtained  from  these  tables,  and  from  the 
aggregate  of  throws,  we  find  the  values  in  the  following  Table,  the  last 
line  of  which  gives  the  theoretical  limit  of  chance  deviation  (L)  : 


rABLE  LXXXV. 

D 

e-throws.     p  — 

V,,. 

Table 

Page 

Number  of 

-x          -x/a 

P 

+x 

+x/a 

P 

Expmts. 

Meas 

% 

% 

X 

42 

500 

12 

2.4           1.44 

.I4986 

2.4 

1.44 

.14986 

LI 

126 

1000 

6 

17           1.44 

.I4986 

2.8 

2.38 

.01732 

XXII 

70 

9800 

6 

0.87        2.28 

.0226o 

0.50 

i-33 

■l8350 

Aggregrate 

14600 

6 

0.58         1.44 

.I4986 

O.47 

1. 18 

.23800 

Limit 

(L) 

4.24 

.0000221 

d.2d 

.0O0O22I 

It  will  be  seen  that  all  of  these  occurrences,  the  least  probable  in  our 
data  under  consideration,  are  in  accord  with  theoretical  expectation ;  and 
that  the  larger  the  set,  the  smaller  does  the  deviation  from  the  theoretical 
central  measure  (in  per  cent)  become,  and  the  probability  that  the  em- 
pirical deviation  is  a  chance  deviation  does  not  decrease. 

5.  In  a  similar  way  we  may  examine  the  various  empirical  central 
measures  of  the  larger  sets  of  trials  which  our  data  provide,  together 
with  similar  empirical  measures  from  other  sources.  And,  since  the 
value  of  the  probability  of  a  single  occurrence  (p)  is  an  important  con- 
sideration, the  data  will  be  presented  in  tables  under  the  varying  values 
of  p.  In  Table  LXXXVI  the  various  available  sets  of  data  in  which  the 
probability  of  a  single  occurrence  (/>  =  .025)  is  small  are  brought  to- 
gether; the  number  of  experiments  or  trials  (n),  the  deviation  of  the 
per  cent  of  R  cases  or  occurrences  from  the  theoretical  per  cent  (x),  the 
amount  of  this  deviation  in  terms  of  the  theoretical  standard  deviation 
(x/a),  and  the  probability  that  the  deviation  is  a  chance  deviation  (P) 
are  given.  Line  /  gives  the  R  guesses  on  the  "Card"  in  5135  "Card 
Imaged"  experiments  (vide,  Table  XV,  p.  64,  supra),  and  line  2  gives 
the  R  guesses  in  4865  "Card  not  Imaged"  experiments,  while  line  J  gives 


340 


INDUCTIVE   PROBABILITY 


the  aggregate  of  these  R  guesses  in  the  total  of  10,000  experiments. 
Line  4  gives  the  occurrence  of  the  Ace  of  Hearts,  and  line  5  of  the  Four 
of  Spades,  in  the  drawing  of  cards  from  shuffled  packs,  in  our  card- 
guessing  experiments ;  the  former  occurred  less  often,  the  latter  more 
often,  than  any  other  card.  Line  6  gives  the  occurrence  of  Zero  in 
31,074  coups  at  Roulette  in  Monte  Carlo  play  from  October  to  November 
1887,  as  calculated  by  Pearson107  from  returns  published  in  the  semi- 
official Le  Pointenr.  Line  7  gives  the  occurrence  of  Zero  during  48  days 
of  play  at  one  table  in  Monte  Carlo  reported  by  "a  student  of  the  game 
of  Roulette" ; 1GS  and  line  8,  the  maximum  deviation  in  the  occurrence  of 
a  single  number  during  the  same  period.  (In  the  Roulette  data,  p  = 
.027).  The  last  line  in  this  and  in  the  immediately  succeeding  tables  gives 
the  x/o  and  P  values  for  the  theoretical  limit  of  chance  deviation. 


TABLE  LXXXVI. 

P  = 

.025. 

Source 

Method 

Event 

n 

X 

x/o 

p* 

1.  Stanford 

Cards 

R  Guess 

SI3S 

0.48 

2.20 

.02780 

2. 

it 

" 

4865 

0.40 

i-79 

•07346 

3- 

" 

" 

I OOOO 

0.44 

2.82 

.00480 

4-         " 

ti 

1  H 

1 0000 

0.34 

2.18 

.02926 

5- 

" 

4  S 

1 0000 

0.50 

3.21 

.00132 

6.  Pearson 

Roulette 

Zero 

31074 

1.60 

11.94 

.00000 

7- 

(( 

" 

31374 

0.166 

1.82 

.06876 

8. 

(( 

Max. 

31374 

0.252 

2.76 

.00578 

Limit   of  Chance 

(L) 

■  •  4.24 

.0000221 

All  of  these  deviations,  except  that  in  line  6,  have  a  probability 
which  places  them  within  the  range  of  theoretical  expectation.  The  least 
probable  is  that  of  the  occurrence  of  the  Four  of  Spades,  and  it  is  to  be 
expected  132  times  in  100,000  sets  of  10,000  drawings.  Those  in  lines  4 
and  5  are  the  largest  of  40  deviations,  the  probability  of  which  would,  of 
course,  be  higher  than  the  probability  of  these  respective  events ;  and 
that  in  line  8  is  the  largest  in  ^y  deviations,  of  which  that  in  line  7  is  one. 
These  empirical  central  measures  conform  to  the  law  of  chances.  The 
"student"  who  contributed  the  data  in  lines  7  and  8  found  that  17  out  of 
37  deviations  were  0,  and  that  10  others  were  not  greater  than  0.016%  ; 
the  deviation  of  0.252%  was  regarded  as  a  noteworthy  "exception."    The 


*  Vide,  footnote  to  Table  LXXXIV,  p.  338,  supra. 

167  Pearson :     Scientific  aspect  of  Monte  Carlo  roulette,  in   "The  Chances   of 
Death,"  vol.  I,  p.  57. 

168  Ibid.,  p.  58. 


EMPIRICAL   AND  THEORETICAL   CENTRAL    MEASURES 


341 


deviation  in  line  6,  however,  cannot  be  accepted  as  a  chance  deviation 
(the  limit  being  .tr/°  =  4-24)-  A  study  of  the  occurrence  of  the  respective 
numbers  in  Roulette  led  Professor  Pearson  to  say:  "the  special  numbers 
themselves  are  in  all  probability  occasionally  very  chaotic." 169  One 
series  of  16,563  throws  which  he  examined  gave  him  results  of  which  he 
said :  "The  odds  against  a  divergence  so  great  as  this  are  roughly  about 
2,000,000  to  1."  17° 

In  Table  LXXXVII  the  probability  of  occurrence  is  a  step  higher 
(p  =  .i).  Lines  /  and  2  give  the  R  guesses  on  the  number  of  spots  in 
the  "Card  Imaged"  and  "Card  not  Imaged"  experiments,  respectively, 
(from  Table  XV,  p.  64)  ;  line  J  gives  the  aggregate;  line  4  gives  the  R 
cases  in  the  guessing  of  digits,  and  line  5  in  the  guessing  of  spots  on 
playing-cards  conducted  by  the  old  American  Society  for  Psychical  Re- 
search ;171  lines  6  and  7  give  the  occurrences  of  the  7-spot  and  10-spot 
cards  in  drawings  from  a  shuffled  pack,  the  former  having  been  less  fre- 
quent, the  latter  more  frequent,  than  cards  with  other  numbers  of  spots. 


TABLE  LXXXVII. 

h  =    t 

Source 

Method 

Event 

n 

X 

x/a 

P 

1.  Stanford 

Cards 

R  Guess 

5135 

0.477 

1. 142 

•25346 

2. 

" 

" 

4865 

0.031 

0.072 

.94260 

3- 

" 

" 

IOOOO 

0.260 

0.867 

38596 

4.  Am.   S.   P. 

R. 

Digits 

it 

12130 

0.333 

1.22 

.22248 

5- 

Cards 

a 

4050 

0.593 

1.26 

.20766 

6.  Stanford 

u 

7-spot 

IOOOO 

o.7S 

2.50 

.01242 

7- 

" 

10-spot 

IOOOO 

051 

1.70 

.08914 

Limit   of   Chance 

(L) 

•  424 

.0000221 

All  of  these  deviations  are  well  within  the  field  of  chance  deviation. 

In  Table  LXXXVIII  the  probability  of  occurrence  is  a  second  step 
higher  (/>  =  %  or  .167).  Line  /  gives  the  occurrence  of  the  6-spot  in 
Miss  Smith's  aggregate  of  2000  throws  (from  the  distribution  shown  in 
Curve  A,  Plate  XLV),172  line  2  gives  the  occurrence  of  the  6-spot  in  the 
aggregate  of  our  throws  of  dice,  and  line  ?  gives  the  like  occurrence  in 
Weldon's  throws  of  12  dice  (from  the  distribution  shown  in  Curve  B, 
Plate  XLV).173 


189  Op.  cit.,  p.  56. 

170  Ibid.,  p.  52. 

171  Proceedings  Am.S.P.R.,  Series  I,  1:28,  107. 

172  Supra,  p.  322. 

173  Supra,  p.  322. 


342 


INDUCTIVE   PROBABILITY 


TABLE  LXXXVIII. 


>  =  v6 

=  .167. 

Source 

Method 

Event 

n 

X 

x/a 

P 

I.  Stanford 

Dice 

6-spot 

2000 

0.220 

0.837 

.40260 

2.            " 

" 

** 

14600 

O.O3O 

0.074 

.94102 

3.  Weldon 

" 

" 

49152 

O.OOO 

0.000 

.90999 

Limit   of   Chance 

(L) 

.0000221 

The  probability  of  the  deviation  from  the  theoretical  mean  in  line  / 
is  close  to  average,  in  lines  2  and  3  exceptionally  high. 

In  Table  LXXXIX  the  probability  of  occurrence  is  a  third  step 
higher  (p  =  .2$).  Lines  /  and  2  give  the  R  guesses  on  "Suit"  in  the 
"Card  Imaged"  and  "Card  not  Imaged"  experiments,  respectively,  (from 
Table  XV,  p.  64),  and  line  J  gives  the  aggregate  R  guesses;  line  4  gives 
the  occurrence  of  Hearts,  line  5  of  Spades,  in  the  drawings  of  the  cards 
from  a  shuffled  pack,  the  former  having  occurred  less  often,  the  latter 
more  often,  than  any  other  suit,  and  line  6  gives  the  occurrence  of  one 
head  in  throws  of  four  pennies  made  by  Miss  Sudden  ( from  the  distri- 
bution shown  in  Curve  A,  Plate  XLVI).174 


TABLE  LXXXIX. 

/>  = 

•25- 

Source 

Method 

Event 

11 

X 

x/a 

P 

1.  Stanford 

Cards 

R  Guess 

5135 

1. 17 

1-94 

.05238 

2. 

" 

•* 

4865 

0.74 

1. 19 

•23404 

3- 

" 

11 

I OOOO 

0.96 

2.21 

.02710 

4- 

tt 

Hearts 

IOOOO 

0.68 

1-57 

.11642 

S- 

" 

Spades 

10000 

1.60 

370 

.00022 

6. 

Pennies 

1  Head 

1000 

1.60 

1. 17 

.24200 

Limit   of 

Chance 

(L) 

•  •  4-24 

.0000221 

Again  all  the  deviations  lie  within  the  limits  of  chance.  One  devia- 
tion, however,  that  in  line  5,  is  interesting  in  that  its  probability  is  less 
than  any  others  to  be  found  among  our  empirical  central  measures ;  yet 
we  should  expect  the  occurrence  of  a  suit  at  least  as  often  in  22  out  of 
100,000  sets  of  10,000  drawings  of  cards. 

In  Table  XC  the  probability  of  occurrence  is  a  fourth  step  higher 
(p  =  y3).  Line  /  gives  the  occurrence  of  the  5-spot  and  the  6-spot  in 
the  aggregate  throws  of  dice,  and  line  2  gives  the  like  occurrence  in  248 
throws  of  three  dice  made  by  Yule.  I75 


174  Supra,  p.  324. 

175  Yule:    An  Introduction  to  the  Theory  of  Statistics,  3d  ed.,  p.  259. 


EMPIRICAL   AND  THEORETICAL   CENTRAL    MEASURES  343 


TABLE  XC. 

#  =  V,  =  -333- 

Source 

Method 

Event             n 

X 

x/a 

P 

I.  Stanford 

Dice 

5  and  6         14600 

0.283 

0.725 

.46846 

2.  Yule 

" 

1944 

I.I3 

1.060 

.28914 

These  deviations,  as  their  probability  shows,  are  good  samples  of 
chance  events. 

Table  XCI  displays  a  number  of  empirical  central  measures  from 
sets  varying  considerably  in  size  and  in  method ;  the  probability  of  a 
single  occurrence  is  .5.  Line  1  gives  the  occurrence  of  drawing  the  blank 
side  of  a  Lotto-Block  (from  the  total  of  the  last  column  of  Table  I,  p. 
38,  supra)  ;  lines  2  and  J,  the  largest  negative  and  largest  positive  devia- 
tions, respectively,  in  the  occurrence  of  an  odd  die-number  in  13  sets  of 
1000  throws ;  lines  4  and  5,  the  R  guesses  on  color  in  the  "Card  Imaged" 
and  "Card  not  Imaged"  experiments,  respectively  ( from  Table  XV,  p. 
64)  ;  lines  6  and  7,  the  like  occurrences,  respectively,  in  the  thought- 
transference  experiments  conducted  by  the  old  American  Society  for 
Psychical  Research  ;176  lines  8  and  9,  the  occurrence  of  a  red  card  in  a 
set  of  10,000  drawings  from  a  shuffled  pack  of  red  and  black  cards,  the 
former  made  in  our  thought-transference  experiments,  (see  Curve  A, 
Plate  XLIV),177  the  latter  made  by  Charlier 178  (see  Curve  C,  same 
plate)  ;  line  10,  the  occurrence  of  one  of  the  first  forty-five  numbers  in 
drawings  made  by  Westergaard  179  from  a  bag  containing  90  tickets  num- 
bered from  1  to  90;  lines  //,  12  and  13  the  occurrence  of  heads  in  the 
tossing  of  pennies  at  Stanford  ( of  which  the  distributions  are  shown  in 
in  curves  A,  D,  and  E,  Plate  XLVI)  ;lso  lines  14,  13,  16,  17,  and  18,  the 
like  occurrence  in  the  tossing  of  coins  by  Miss  Alice  Johnson,181  Buffon,179 
De  Morgan,179  Griffith,179  and  Pearson,179  respectively;  line  zo,  the 
occurrence  of  heads  in  the  aggregate  of  the  throws  reported  in  lines  //, 
12,  and  rj ;  line  20,  the  like  occurrence  in  throws  of  a  penny  made  by 
Jevons  ;182  line  21,  the  like  occurrence  in  throws  of  a  shilling,  made  by 
Pearson  ;179  lines  22  and  23,  the  occurrence  of  white  balls  in  the  drawings 
of  white  and  black  balls  made  by  Quetelet,179  and  Westergaard,183  (see 


176 Proceedings  Am.S.P.R.,  1885,  Series  I,  1:20. 

177  Supra,  p.  320. 

178  Arne  Fisher:    The  Mathematical  Theory  of  Probabilities  and  its  application 
to  frequency  curves  and  statistical  methods.     New  York,  1915,  vol.  I,  p.  138. 

179  Pearson :     The  scientific  aspect  of  Monte  Carlo,  he.  cit.,  p.  48. 

180  Supra,  p.  324. 

181  Proceedings.  S.P.R.,  1809,  14:189. 

182  John  Grier  Hibben :     Inductive  Logic.     New  York,  1901,  p.  236. 

183  Yule :    An  Introduction  to  the  Theory  of  Statistics.    3d  ed.,  p.  247. 


344 


INDUCTIVE   PROBABILITY 


Curve  C,  Plate  XLIII),184  respectively;  line  24,  the  occurrence  of  odd 
die-spots  in  the  aggregate  throws  of  dice  made  in  connection  with  experi- 
ments reported  in  Part  I ;  line  25,  the  occurrence  of  die-spots  4,  5,  and 
6,  in  the  same  aggregate  of  throws ;  lines  26  and  27,  the  like  occurrence 
in  throws  made  by  Weldon165  (see  Curve  A,  Plate  XLVII),166  and  Dar- 
bishire187  (see  Curve  Bt  same  plate),  respectively;  line  28,  29,  and  jo,  the 
occurrence  of  red  in  the  coups  of  the  Roulette  at  Monte  Carlo,  as  cal- 
culated by  Pearson,  17°  De  Whalley,  17°  and  Pearson,183  respectively. 


Source 
1.  Stanford 


Method 
Lotto- Blocks 


S.  P.  R. 


2.  " 

3-  " 

4-  " 

5.  " 

6.  Am. 

7- 

8.  Stanford 

9.  Charlier 

10.  Westergaard 

11.  Sudden 

12.  J.  E.  Coover 

13.  C.  C.  Coover 

14.  Johnson 

15.  Buffon 

16.  De  Morgan 

17.  Griffith 

18.  Pearson 

19.  Stanford 

20.  Jevons 

21.  Pearson 

22.  Quetelet 

23.  Westergaard 

24.  Stanford 

25.  " 

26.  Weldon 

27.  Darbishire 

28.  Pearson 

29.  De  Whalley 

30.  Pearson 
Limit  of  Chance 


Dice 
Cards 


Tickets 
Coins 


Balls 

U 

Dice 

<( 

u 

Roulette 
u 

(L) 


184  Supra,  p.  319. 

185  Yule:     Op.  cit., 

186  Supra,  p.  326. 

187  Yule :     Op.  cit., 


TABLE 
/>  = 
Event 
Blank 
Odd 

R  Guess 


Red 

1st  half 
Heads 


White 

Odd 

4.5,6 


Red 


XCI. 

5- 

n 

1,000 

1,000 

1,000 

5,135 

4,865 

5-500 

5,150 

10,000 

10,000 

7,275 

4,000 

6,000 

6,000 

4,096 

4,040 

4,092 

8,178 

12,000 

16,000 

20,480 

24,000 

4,096 

10,000 

14,600 

14,600 

49,152 

78,000 

16,141 

16,019 

30,575 


x 

0.20 
1.80 
4.10 
0.224 
1.22 
0.51 
0.35 
1.06 
0.66 
0.034 

0-45 
0.62 
0.38 
0.22 
1. 00 
0.05 
0.04 
0.16 
0.025 

0-55 
0.05 
0.40 

O.II 

1. 185 
0.295 
1. 16 

1.24 

0.15 

0.27 

0.0147 


x/a 

0.126 
1. 140 
2.590 
0.321 
1.680 

0.754 
0.501 
2.120 
1.320 
0.058 
0.570 
o.955 
o.594 
0.281 
1.268 
0.064 
0.072 

0.351 
0.063 

1-575 
0.155 
0.513 
0.220 
2.860 
0.712 
5-130 
6.920 
0.380 
0.684 

0.0515 
4.24 


89974 
25428 
00940 
74822 
09296 
45086 
61638 
03400 
18684 

95374 
56868 
33958 
55252 
77872 
20480 
94898 
94260 
72560 
94976 
1 1526 
87782 
60796 
82588 
00424 
47648 
00000 
00000 
70394 
49398 
95892 
0000221 


P-  274. 


188  Pearson :     Op.  cit.,  p.  57,  footnote  2. 


EMPIRICAL   AND  THEORETICAL  CENTRAL    MEASURES  345 

All  of  the  entries  in  this  table,  excepting  lines  26  and  27,  are  in  ac- 
cord with  the  theoretical  law  of  chances ;  in  100,000  sets,  each  com- 
parable in  number  to  the  respective  sets  entered  in  the  table,  we  may 
expect  from  424  (line  24)  to  95,892  (line  30)  to  yield  deviations  from 
the  theoretical  central  measure  greater  than  those  which  have  occurred 
in  these  sets.  Evidence  for  an  extra-chance  cause  is  satisfactory  if  the 
probability  of  the  deviation  is  so  small  as  to  permit  but  2,  and  this  require- 
ment is  somewhat  more  than  met  in  the  deviations  in  lines  26  and  27, 
which  occurred  in  throws  of  dice.  The  distributions  of  these  sets  were 
found  189  to  deviate  sufficiently  from  the  theoretical  distribution,  thatr 
together,  they  could  not  be  expected  to  occur  once  in  a  million  pairs  of 
distributions.  In  the  x/a  column  it  may  be  seen  that  their  deviations  are 
5.13  and  6.92  times  the  theoretical  "standard  deviation,"  while  the  limit  of 
chance  prescribes  4.24  times  that  measure.  Of  the  deviation  in  Weldon's 
throws  (.r/o=5.i3)  Yule  said:190 

The  deviation  observed  is  5.1  times  the  standard  error,  and,  practically  speak- 
ing, could  not  occur  as  a  fluctuation  of  simple  sampling.  It  may  perhaps  indicate  a 
slight  bias  in  the  dice. 

And  concerning  a  deviation  of  60",  Karl  Pearson  said  :191 

The  odds  against  a  deviation  even  six  times  the  standard  deviation  are  more 
than  a  thousand  million  to  one. 

Karl   Pearson  has  also  observed,192  concerning  dice,  that  "a  persistent 
bias  has  been  observed  in  them." 

These  negative  instances  tend  to  strengthen  the  main  body  of  evi- 
dence adduced  to  show  the  concordance  of  empirically  derived  central 
measures  with  theoretical  expectation,  and  also  to  support  the  thesis  that 
in  the  theory  of  probability  and  the  mathematical  formulae  derived  there- 
from lies  an  instrument  of  precision  capable  of  revealing  the  presence  of 
even  slight  extra-chance  causes  and  worthy  of  more  generous  adoption 
in  the  field  of  psychical  research.  If  the  slight  bias  of  dice  can  be  dem- 
onstrated, other  slight  constant  causes  certainly  can. 

In  this  section  we  have  examined  the  deviations  of  empirical  central 
measures  from  theoretical  central  measures  for  an  aggregate  of  2,214,622 
experiments  in  sets  both  small  and  large  and  when  the  probability  of  a 
single  occurrence  of  a  designated  event  varied  within  the  limits  of 
/>=  .025  and  p  =  .5,  and,  except  for  the  few  cases  accounted  for,  we  have 

188  Supra,  p.  326. 

190  Yule:     Op.  cit.,  p.  267. 

181  Supra,  p.  330,  footnote  157. 

1,2  Supra,  p.  327,  footnote  155. 


346  INDUCTIVE   PROBABILITY 

found  that  the  empirical  central  measures  derived  under  all  these  vary- 
ing conditions,  do  not  deviate  from  the  theoretical  central  measures  far- 
ther than  theory  prescribes.  Both  theoretical  probability  and  the  form- 
ulae derived  therefrom  which  are  applicable  to  central  measures  have  re- 
ceived confirmation. 

The  Infinitesimal  Probability. 

When  considering  the  application  of  mental  habit  to  experiments  on 
thought-transference  we  noticed  the  unsatisfactory  nature  of  the  condi- 
tions of  experiment  which  permitted  the  unreckoned  influence  of  com- 
mon associations,  resulting  from  "psychical  communism,"  193  and  observed 
that  the  infinitesimally  probable  upon  which  reliance  is  placed  may  in 
reality  be  highly  probable.  Again,  when  considering  Venn's  statement 
that  any  given  highly  improbable  event  (e.g.,  the  production  of  Milton's 
"Paradise  Lost,"  by  recording  the  letters  drawn  at  random  from  a  bag) 
must  certainly  occur  if  the  trials  are  only  kept  up  long  enough,  and  his 
counter-assertion,  to  the  claim  that  any  given  empirical  event  may  be  one 
of  the  occurrences  which  theory  prescribes,  "it  is  inconceivably  unlikely 
that  it  should  be  one,"  we  reserved  for  separate  consideration  the  "in- 
finitesimal probability."  194    It  is  now  time  to  see  what  we  can  make  of  it. 

We  have  found  that  the  distribution  of  frequency  values  derived 
from  empirical  chance  events  agrees,  within  the  limits  prescribed  by  the 
law,  with  the  law  of  chances,  and  that  when  the  empirical  value  under 
consideration  is  the  occurrence  of  a  least  probable  or  a  highly  improbable 
event,  or  is  a  central  measure,  the  empirical  value  falls  within  the  pre- 
scribed limits  in  the  theoretical  distribution,  also  in  accordance  with  the 
law  of  chances.  If  the  event  is  highly  probable,  such  as  25  "heads"  in  50 
throws  of  a  coin,  it  occurs  more  often  in  a  given  number  of  sets  of  50 
throws  than  does  26  heads,  27  heads,  30  heads,  40  heads  or  50  heads. 
The  law  of  chances  gives,  for  these  events,  the  following  probabilities: 

Heads  P 

25  .112 

26  .108 

27  .096 
30  .0419 

40  .000,009,12 

50  .000.000,000,000,000,888 

The  empirical  frequency  values  follow,  as  we  have  found,  the  theoretical 


193  Supra,  pp.  297,  305-8. 

194  Supra,  p.  316,  footnote  140. 


THE   INFINITESIMAL   PROBABILITY  347 

frequencies  very  closely.  If  we  have  ioo  sets  of  50  throws  we  may  ex- 
pect about  11  or  12  sets  to  yield  25  heads,  about  10  or  11  to  yield  24  or 
26  heads,  about  9  or  10  to  yield  2$  or  27  heads,  about  4  to  yield  20  or  50 
heads,  none  to  yield  10  or  40,  or  o  or  50  heads.  If  we  had  100,000  sets, 
we  could  expect  about  one  set  to  yield  10,  and  another  set  to  yield  40, 
heads.  If  we  had  1,000,000,000,000,000  sets,  we  should  not  be  surprised 
to  find  one  set  with  0  heads,  or  another  with  §0  heads,  or  both.  In  other 
words,  we  expect  the  events  of  varying  probability  to  occur  in  their 
proper  ratio. 

Whether  any  given  number  of  heads  in  a  set  of  50  throws  is  a  highly 
improbable  event  consequently  depends  upon  the  number  of  sets  to  be 
examined. 

The  same  reasoning  applies  to  R  guesses ;  for  example,  on  cards 
drawn  from  a  shuffled  pack  of  40.  The  probability  of  a  single  occur- 
rence (p  =  .025)  is  much  less  than  in  the  case  of  the  coin-tossing 
(/>  — .  5),  and  the  probability  of  the  various  numbers  of  R  cases  in  a  set 
of  50  guesses,  is  much  different : 

R  Guesses  P 

0  .282 

1  .362 

2  .227 

3  -093 

4  .028 

5  007 

6  .001 

7  .000,2 

8  .000,03 

9  .000,003 
10  .000,000,4 

19  .000,000,000,000,000,05 

If  100  sets  of  50  guesses  are  examined,  we  should  expect  to  find  only 
about  one  set  in  which  there  are  5  R  cases,  and  would  not  be  surprised 
to  find  6  R  cases,  which  should  occur  about  %  as  often  as  5  R  cases. 
We  could  even  look  upon  7  R  cases  as  a  chance  event.  But  8  or  more  R 
cases  would  be  regarded  as  evidence  of  an  extra-chance  cause.  If  we 
had  100,000  sets  we  could  expect  about  3  sets  giving  8  R  guesses,  and 
probably  one  giving  9  R  guesses.  If  we  had  1,000,000,000,000,000  sets 
we  might  reasonably  expect  a  set  or  two  giving  18  R  guesses,  but  we 
would  not  expect  any  giving  19  R  guesses.  Thus,  here  too,  one  expects 
the  events  which  have  varying  chances  for  occurrence  to  occur  in  their 
proper  ratio.  And,  because  of  the  difference  in  the  value  of  p,  we  should 
expect,  in  a  tremendous  number  of  sets  of  50  trials,  19  R  guesses  on  the 


348  INDUCTIVE  PROBABILITY 

"Card"  less  often  than  50  R  guesses  on  the  Color  of  the  card  (when 
p  =  .5,  the  same  as  for  heads  in  coin-tossing). 

Our  survey  both  of  empirical  distributions  and  of  empirical  central 
measures  has  justified  the  expectation  that  whatever  the  value  of  p,  or 
whatever  the  number  of  the  trials  or  sets  of  trials  examined,  the  various 
frequencies  in  the  distribution  do  conform  to  the  prescribed  probabilities, 
and  in  the  proper  ratio  of  occurrence ;  that  the  extremely  improbable 
event,  the  event  with  an  "infinitesimal  probability,"  does  not  occur,  and 
may  be  practically  disregarded  although  the  law  of  chances  makes  its 
occurrence  necessary  some  time  or  other. 

But  we  have  already  noticed  that,  since  it  must  occur  sometime,  it 
might  happen  in  any  series  of  trials,  and  in  view  of  the  fact  that  trials  of 
all  sorts  have  been  carried  out  to  great  numbers  and,  moreover,  that  any 
empirical  series  of  trials  may  be  considered  a  part  of  an  indefinitely  large 
number  of  series,  it  may  fairly  be  asked  whether  occurrences  which,  upon 
the  basis  of  any  single  empirical  series,  must  be  regarded  as  having  an 
infinitesimal  probability,  may  not  be  expected  to  occur,  or  indeed  have 
not  occurred,  and  consequently  could  not  be  safely  accepted  in  the  limited 
empirical  series  as  evidence  of  an  extra-chance  cause.  This  query  rises 
in  spite  of  the  admission  that  the  improbability  of  the  event  (on  the  basis 
of  the  limited  series )  is  an  index  to  the  degree  with  which  it  may  be  dis- 
regarded and  that  scientific  certainty  is  satisfied  with  a  practical  limit  in 
which  P  =  .0000221. 

The  event  with  an  infinitesimal  probability  has  not  occurred  in  our 
empirical  series,  but  it  does  seem  to  have  occurred  elsewhere :  vis.,  in 
games  of  chance  and  in  daily  life.  Let  us  examine  and  try  to  interpret 
the  meaning  of  some  of  these  instances,  and  we  may  as  well  begin  with 
some  events  which  have  been  sufficiently  striking  to  be  reported  in  the 
literature,  but  the  probability  of  which  is  far  from  "infinitesimal:" 

E.  Desbeaux  195  has  communicated  three  cases  in  his  own  experi- 
ence at  Monte  Carlo,  the  detail  being  reproduced  from  his  diary.  His 
second  and  third  cases  follow : 

(1)  Tuesday,  Dec.  26,  1894. — M.  Desbeaux  had  to  dodge  out  of  the  way  of  a 
carriage  bearing  on  its  lighted  lamps  the  number  22.  At  the  Casino  he  placed  some 
money  on  22,  but  it  failed  to  turn  up,  and  he  left.  Had  dinner  and  returned.  Des- 
tiny having  failed  to  furnish  him  a  cue  he  decided  it  should  be  /.  After  he  waited 
an  hour  /  turned  up ;  he  then  put  down  a  louis  on  the  22.  The  croupier  threw  his 
ball,  and  22  turned  up.  The  next  day  while  lunching  with  friends  at  the  Hotel  du 
Cap  Martin,  he  noticed  that  the  service-card  on  the  table  was  222.  At  nine  o'clock 
in  the  evening  at  the  Casino  just  as  he  approached  a  roulette  table  the  /  turned  up. 


105  E.    Desbeaux :     Trois   cas    de    premonition.     Annates   des   Sciences   Psy- 
chiques,  Paris,  1889,  9:65-70. 


THE   INFINITESIMAL  PROBABILITY  349 

Since  success  followed  this  cue  once  before,  he  staked  a  louis  on  the  22  again; 
22  turned  up ;  he  took  his  winnings  and  left  his  louis  on  22  for  a  second  time,  but 
lost ;  suspecting  that  the  surplus  2  on  the  service-card  at  the  hotel  was  supplied  by 
destiny  for  his  cue,  he  hurriedly  placed  a  louis  on  22  a  third  time,  since  2  had  just 
been  called.     He  won.     (Two  22's  out  of  three). 

(2)  February  3,  1899. — His  glance  was  challenged  by  the  number  //  painted 
on  a  wall ;  he  looked  about  for  a  cue  and  at  once  saw  electric  car  No.  4.  At  the 
Casino  while  waiting  for  the  4  to  turn  up  he  played  5  franc  pieces  for  an  hour,  con- 
stantly losing.  Upon  4  turning  up  he  staked  on  // ;  it  won.  He  picked  up  his 
winnings  and  started  on  his  way  out,  but  upon  glancing  at  the  table  on  his  left  he 
saw  4  turn  up  there.  He  at  once  put  down  a  louis  on  the  //,  and  won  again.  (Two 
Il's  in  two  trials.    P  =  .000731). 

Other  cases  of  alleged  presentiment  relating  to  numbers  were  com- 
municated to  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research  196  by  Professor  G.  Hulin 
of  the  University  of  Ghent.  It  appears  that  in  Belgium  young  men  have 
often  predicted  the  numbers  they  were  to  draw  in  the  conscription  for  the 
army  :19T 

(3)  Five  cases  of  the  right  numbers  being  predicted,  during  the  eight  years, 
1886-1894,  are  given  on  good  authority;  the  numbers  in  the  first  four  cases  being 
respectively  90,  112,  216,  in.  The  first  case  was  an  especially  striking  one;  a 
clearly  externalized  vision  of  the  number  90  appeared  to  the  percipient,  and  pro- 
duced a  strong  impression  on  his  mind,  convincing  him  that  he  would  draw  that 
number.  In  the  fifth  case,  the  man  who  was  to  draw  first  announced  that  his  num- 
ber would  be  116,  and  on  being  told  that  that  was  already  drawn,  said  it  would  be 
115,  which  turned  out  correct.  The  report  only  professes  to  give  correct  pre- 
dictions, and  we  have  no  means  of  knowing  how  often  predictions  of  these  num- 
bers are  made  which  turn  out  wrong.  Neither  are  we  told  how  many  numbers  there 
were  to  draw  from,  except  in  one  case,  where  it  appears  that  there  were  at  least 
150,  the  lowest  of  them  being  46  and  the  highest  223.  In  this  case,  the  number 
216  was  the  one  rightly  guessed.  We  must  assume,  I  think,  that  these  facts  were 
known  to  the  man  who  was  to  draw,  .  .  .  and,  if  so,  the  chance  of  his  making  a 
correct  guess  was,  of  course,  about  I  in  150.     (pp.  253-4). 

Assuming  that  the  chance  of  a  R  guess  of  a  conscription-number 
was  Y150  (/>  =00667),  less  than  300  guesses  of  conscription-numbers 
would  need  to  have  been  made  during  the  eight  years  for  the  five  cases 
to  be  accounted  for  by  chance. 

Richard  A.  Proctor  10S  gives  several  cases  of  rare  events : 

(4)  Professor  De  Morgan,  in  his  'Budget  of  Paradoxes'  says :  "In  the  French 
lottery  five  numbers  out  of  ninety  were  drawn  at  a  time ;    any  person,  in  any  part 


!»6  Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  1895,  1 1  :  545  ff. 
137  Idem,  1899,  14:253-4. 

198  Richard  A.  Proctor :     Chance  and  Luck ;    a  discussion  of  the  laws  of  luck, 
coincidences,  wagers,  lotteries,  and  the  fallacies  of  gambling.     London,  1899. 


350  INDUCTIVE   PROBABILITY 

of  the  country,  might  stake  any  sum  upon  any  event  he  pleased,  as  that  27  should 
be  drawn ;  that  42  and  81  should  be  drawn ;  that  42  and  81  should  be  drawn  and  42 
first ;  and  so  on  up  to  a  quine  determine,  if  he  chose,  which  is  betting  on  five  given 
numbers  in  a  given  order."  The  chance  of  a  successful  guess,  in  this  last  case,  is  1 
in  5,274,772,160.  (/>  =  .000,000,000,19)  (p.  144).  ...  No  instances  are  on  record  of 
a  quine  determine  being  won,  but  a  simple  quine,  the  odds  against  which,  be  it  re- 
membered, are  nearly  44  millions  to  1  (/>  =  .000,000,022,8),  has  been  won;  and 
simple  qua t ernes,  against  which  the  odds  are  more  than  half "  a  million  to  1 
(/>  =  .000,002),  have  often  been  won.  In  July  1821  a  strange  circumstance  occurred. 
A  gambler  had  selected  the  five  numbers  8,  13,  16,  46,  and  64,  and  for  the  same 
drawing  another  had  selected  the  four  numbers  8,  16,  46,  and  64.  The  numbers 
actually  drawn  were 

8  46  16  64  13 

so  that  both  gamblers  won.  Their  stakes  were  small,  unfortunately  for  them  and 
fortunately  for  the  bank,  and  their  actual  winnings  were  only  131,350  francs  and 
20,852  francs  respectively.  If  each  had  ventured  £1  only,  their  respective  winnings 
would  have  been  £1,000,000  and  £75,000.  The  coincidence  was  so  remarkable  (the 
antecedent  probability  against  two  gamblers  winning  on  a  simple  drawing  or  simple 
quine  and  a  simple  quaterne  being  about  22  billions  to  1  [/>  =  .000,000,000,045,5]), 
that  one  can  understand  a  suspicion  arising  that  a  hint  had  been  given  from  some 
one  employed  at  the  lottery-office.  M.  Menut  insinuates  this,  and  a  recent  occur- 
rence at  Naples  suggests  at  least  the  possibility  of  collusion  between  gamblers  and 
the  drawers  of  lottery  numbers.  But  in  the  case  above  cited  the  smallness  of  the 
stakes  warrants  the  belief  that  the  result  was  purely  accidental.  Certainly  the 
gamblers  would  have  staked  more  had  they  known  what  was  to  be  the  actual  result 
of  the  drawing,     (pp.  145-6). 

Whether  these  apparently  improbable  events  had  an  infinitesimal 
probability  would  depend  upon  the  number  of  wagers  made.  Proctor, 
from  figures  given  by  De  Morgan,  calculates  that  about  5,000,000  persons 
per  annum  staked  money  on  the  simple  quaterne  alone,  and  quotes 
Quetelet  to  the  effect  that  in  the  five  years  181 6- 1820  the  total  sums  haz- 
arded on  all  forms  of  venture  in  the  Paris  lottery  amounted  to  126,944,- 
000  francs.199  If  as  many  wagers  had  been  placed  upon  simple  quiv.es 
as  appear  to  have  been  placed  upon  simple  quaternes,  one  might  expect 
a  simple  quine  to  be  won,  according  to  the  law  of  chances,  some  three 
times  in  twenty  years. 

In  another  place  Proctor  reports  a  remarkable  event  in  the  throwing 

of  dice: 

(5)  Mr.  Steinmetz  tells  us  that,  in  1813,  a  Mr.  Ogden  wagered  1,000  guineas 
to  one  that  'seven'  would  not  be  thrown  with  a  pair  of  dice  ten  successive  times. 
The  wager  was  accepted  (though  it  was  egregiously  unfair),  and  strange  to  say 
his  opponent  threw  'seven'  nine  times  running.  At  this  point  Mr.  Ogden  offered 
470  guineas  to  be  off  the  bet.     But  his  opponent  declined  (though  the  price  offered 


™»  Proctor  :     Op.  cit.,  p.  147. 


THE   INFINITESIMAL  PROBABILITY  351 

was  far  beyond  the  real  value  of  his  chance).     He  cast  yet  once  more,  and  threw 
'nine,'  so  that  Mr.  Ogden  won  his  guinea. 

Now  here  we  have  an  instance  of  a  most  remarkable  series  of  throws,  the  like 
of  which  has  never  been  recorded  before  or  since.  Before  those  throws  had  been 
made,  it  might  have  been  asserted  that  the  throwing  of  nine  successive  'sevens'  with 
a  pair  of  dice  was  a  circumstance  which  chance  could  never  bring  about,  for  ex- 
perience was  as  much  against  such  an  event  as  it  would  seem  to  be  against  the 
turning  up  of  a  certain  number  ten  successive  times  at  Roulette.  Yet  experience 
now  shows  that  the  thing  is  possible  ;  and  if  we  are  to  limit  the  action  of  chance, 
we  must  assert  that  the  throwing  of  'seven'  ten  times  in  succession  is  an  event 
which  will  never  happen.  Yet  such  a  conclusion  obviously  rests  on  as  unstable  a 
basis  as  the  former,  of  which  experience  has  disposed,     (pp.  34-5). 

The  chance  of  throwing  'seven'  with  a  pair  of  dice  is  %  ;  of  throw- 
ing 'seven'  nine  times  in  succession  is  (%)",  or  once  in  10,077,696  trials 
(/>  =  .000,000,099,5),  which  we  may  regard  as  an  infinitesimal  probabil- 
ity when  only  a  short  series  of  throws  is  considered.  The  event  which 
did  not  occur  (the  throwing  of  'seven'  ten  times  running)  has  a  prob- 
ability of  .000,000,016,6.  According  to  the  law  of  chances,  as  Proctor 
intimated,  either  of  these  events  may  be  expected  to  occur  in  a  sufficiently 
great  number  of  trials,  and  if  we  were  to  regard  the  occurrence  of  the 
run  of  nine  'sevens'  as  belonging  to  the  aggregate  series  of  all  the  trials 
ever  made  to  throw  'seven,'  it  might  after  all  have  a  fair  degree  of  prob- 
ability.    Thus,  if  11,000,000  trials  had  been  made  it  was  overdue. 

Miss  Alice  Johnson  20°  has  recorded  a  remarkable  event  ensuing  from 
"a  guessing  competition" : 

(6)  It  happens  that  a  good  deal  of  information  is  available  about  it,  as  it  was 
the  subject  of  two  trials,  the  proprietor  of  the  paper  having  refused  to  pay  the 
prize  money  to  the  successful  competitor,  who  therefore  brought  an  action  against 
him.  The  jury  gave  a  verdict  for  the  plaintiff,  but  this  was  disallowed  by  the 
Judge,  on  the  ground  that  the  competition  was  a  "lottery"  (that  is,  a  distribution 
of  prizes  determined  by  lot  or  chance,  and  involving  no  skill)  and  therefore  illegal. 
The  judgment  was  appealed  against,  and  the  Court  of  Appeal  determined  that  the 
competition  was  not  a  lottery,     (p.  322). 

.  .  .  Mr.  Bingham  Cox,  in  copies  of  the  paper  (the  Rocket)  of  November 
last,  had  offered  a  prize  of  £1000  to  any  one  who  should  predict  the  exact  number 
of  male  and  female  births,  together  with  the  number  of  deaths  in  London  for  the 
week  ending  December  11,  1897.  There  was  also  a  number  of  consolation  prizes 
offered  for  those  who  might  not  predict  the  exact  figures,  but  get  very  near  to  them. 
Hoping  to  be  the  £1000  prize-winner,  the  plaintiff  (John  Henry  Hall,  butcher,  near 
Sheffield)  bought  252  copies.  From  these  copies  he  cut  out  the  coupons,  filled  them 
up  in  the  required  manner,  and  forwarded  them  to  the  offices  of  the  Rocket.  In 
one  of  these  coupons,  according  to  counsel,  he  predicted  that  the  number  of  births 
for  the  week  ending  December  11  in  London  would  be: — Males,  1,244;  females, 
1,245;    and  deaths,  1,866.     Plaintiff  afterwards  obtained  from  the  Registrar-General 


200  Alice  Johnson  :     Coincidences.    Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  1899,  14  :  322  ff. 


352  INDUCTIVE  PROBABILITY 

or  from  the  Queen's  Printers  .  .  .  the  returns  of  the  male  and  female  births  and 
of  deaths  for  the  week  in  question,  and  it  was  alleged  that  the  figures  were  precisely 
the  same  as  those  that  had  been  forecast  by  the  plaintiff  ...  (pp.  322-3). 

.  .  .  The  point  was  argued  whether  the  competition  was  a  lottery  or  not.  .  .  . 
In  a  lottery  there  was,  he  (counsel  for  the  plaintiff)  said,  no  opportunity  given  for 
the  employment  of  any  skill  or  judgment  whatever.  It  depended  purely  on  chance, 
and  no  exercise  of  skill  or  knowledge  entered  into  it.  The  present  case  was  en- 
tirely different,  for  the  plaintiff  had  clearly  shown  that  he  had  taken  a  considerable 
amount  of  trouble  to  obtain  information  to  enable  him  to  form  a  correct  judgment. 
(P-  325)- 

[In  the  Court  of  Appeal,  the  counsel]  for  the  plaintiff  contended  that  this  was 
not  a  competition  of  mere  chance,  but  some  skill  came  into  it — namely,  calculating 
from  previous  returns  of  the  Registrar-General  how  many  births  and  deaths  would 
be  likely  to  take  place  in  London  in  a  particular  week.  It  was  not,  therefore,  a 
lottery.  .  .  . 

Lord  Justice  A.  L.  Smith  said  that,  in  his  opinion,  this  was  not  a  lottery.  The 
solution  of  the  question  did  not  depend  upon  mere  chance.  It  depended  very 
largely  upon  chance,  but  there  was  an  element  of  statistical  inquiry  brought  into  it 
.  .  .  Lord  Justice  Rigby  and  Lord  Justice  Collins  concurred. 

In  reply  to  an  inquiry  made  later  in  the  same  month,  I  was  informed  that 
"the  Rocket  and  its  late  proprietor  are  both  dead,"  so  that  it  seems  very  doubtful 
whether  the  prize  money  was  ever  paid.     (p.  327). 

Although  judgment  was  awarded  the  plaintiff  on  the  grounds  of  some 
element  of  skill  in  the  competition  for  the  prize,  the  judge  admitted  that 
the  solution  of  the  question  "depended  very  largely  upon  chance,"  and  it 
is  our  interest  to  learn  approximately  what,  after  skill  is  allowed  for,  the 
probability  of  a  correct  return  was.  Miss  Johnson  has  estimated  this  by 
finding  the  actual  range  of  the  variations  in  the  numbers  of  male  and 
female  births  and  of  deaths  in  a  week,  in  London,  during  a  large  number 
of  weeks,  and  then  calculating  the  number  of  possible  combinations  of 
numbers  within  these  ranges  : 

The  chance  of  getting  all  the  three  numbers  (male  and  female  births,  and 
deaths)  right  in  a  single  guess  is  one  in  438,770,108.  .  .  . 

Since  the  successful  competitor  made  only  252  guesses,  it  was  extremely  un- 
likely that  he  should  have  got  one  of  them  right  (the  chance  being  one  in  1,740,- 
000)  ;  while  the  chance  against  some  one  of  the  total  100,000  guesses  said  to  have 
been  sent  in  being  correct  (assuming  that  the  guesses  were  all  different,  which 
they  probably  were  not)  was  5,000  to  one.     (p.  329). 

This  seems  like  an  event  with  an  infinitesimal  probability  actually 
occurring,  and  if  the  limit  of  chance  is  calculated  from  this  unusual  prob- 
ability by  the  formulae  customary  for  the  more  usual  probabilities  of  a 
single  occurrence,  the  actual  success  exceeds  the  limit  of  chance  some  17 
times.     Although  when  the  aggregate  number  of  guesses  is  considered, 


THE   INFINITESIMAL  PROBABILITY  353 

the  probability  of  some  one  guess  being  right  is  not  entirely  negligible, 
the  event  itself  is  striking  enough. 

Besides  the  unusual  occurrences,  like  those  just  enumerated,  the  im- 
probability of  which  can  be  fairly  accurately  determined,  we  find  in  the 
literature  the  record  of  perhaps  even  more  striking  events  in  daily  life 
the  infinitesimal  probability  of  which  is  supposed  to  be  patent.  And 
since  these  belong  to  precisely  the  class  of  events  accepted  almost  every- 
where as  proof  of  supernormal  or  even  supernatural  causes,  it  may  be 
worth  our  while  to  inspect  some  of  these  cases,  all  of  which  will  prob- 
ably be  immediately  granted  to  be  fortuitous ;  i.  e.,  as  depending  entirely 
upon  chance. 

We  may  begin  the  list  with  the  following  coincidences  which  were  re- 
ported by  Miss  Johnson  :201 

London,  January  21,  1898. 

(7)  Dr.  M.  and  the  undersigned  H.  W.  B.  are  brothers-in-law.  Dr.  M.  re- 
sides and  practices  in  London ;  H.  W.  B.  lives  in  a  suburb,  but  is  engaged  in  busi- 
ness in  the  city.  In  December,  1897,  he  was  temporarily  staying  with  his  brother- 
in-law  Dr.  M.  The  undersigned  J.  T.  H.,  an  Australian  on  a  short  visit  to  London, 
was  detained  there  by  illness.  He  had  not  previously  known  Dr.  M.  or  H.  W.  B„ 
but  in  November,  1897,  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  Dr.  M.,  who,  on  account  of  the 
ill-health  of  J.  T.  H.,  was  kind  enough  to  invite  him  to  stay  at  his  house.  In  De- 
cember, J.  T.  H.  went  to  stay  with  Dr.  M.,  and  there  for  the  first  time  met  H.  W.  B. 

It  transpired  in  conversation  that  H.  W.  B.  and  J.  T.  H. 

(1)  Were  both  born  on  May  13,  1858; 

(2)  Their  christening  was  in  each  case  delayed  until  the  completion  of  a  new 
church,  one  church  being  in  England,  the  other  in  Australia; 

(3)  At  that  time  (December,  1897)  they  each  occupied  a  house  (one  in 
England,  the  other  in  Australia)  which  house  in  each  case  consisted  of  two  small 
cottages  knocked  into  one  by  connecting  doorways. 

[Signed]  Herbert  Wilford  Brett. 

J.  T.  Hackett. 

Mr.  Hackett  is  an  Associate  S.  P.R.  He  is  an  old  friend  of  mine,  and  gave 
me  the  above  account  orally,  and  afterwards  wrote  it  out  at  my  request. — R. 
Hodgson,     (p.  199). 

(8)  From  a  country  house,  some  years  ago,  we  drove  over,  a  large  party,  to 
some  distant  ironworks.  During  our  walk  round  them  we  had  to  stand  for  a  while 
by  a  little  railway  waiting  for  an  engine  to  get  out  of  the  way.  Whilst  we  did  so 
I  asked  a  man  of  the  party  who  had  only  arrived  the  evening  before  whether  he 
had  ever  been  on  an  engine.  I  forget  what  he  said,  but  I  remember  expatiating  on 
the  fun  of  driving  one — an  accomplishment  I  had  lately  practiced.  He  seemed  con- 
futed, and  some  elderly  ladies  who  were  listening  looked  shocked,  which  I  fear 
piompted  me  to  enlarge  on  the  topic.  On  the  way  back  he  confided  to  me  that 
this  was  the  anniversary  of  his  wife's  death.  She  had  died  that  day  three  years 
ago.     In  the  evening  I  repeated  this  to  our  hostess,  who  then  told  me  the  cause  of 


201  Proceedings  S.P.R..  1899,  14:193  ft. 


354  INDUCTIVE  PROBABILITY 

her  death.  It  appeared  that  once  indeed  the  poor  man  had  been  on  an  engine  and 
it  was  with  his  wife.  It  had  overturned  going  round  a  curve,  and  his  wife  was 
crushed  to  death  beneath  it.     (p.  200). 

(o.)  April  22,  1898. 

Dear  Sir: — Having  been  at  the  meeting  this  afternoon,  at  Westminster  Town 
Hall,  I  write  to  tell  you  about  a  further  coincidence  in  connection  with  one  of  the 
examples  recorded  by  Miss  Shuttleworth  (No.  8).  The  gentleman  with  whom 
Miss  Shuttleworth  spoke  upon  the  subject  of  driving  engines  was,  I  feel  almost 
sure,  my  father.  The  lady  who  lost  her  balance  while  rounding  a  corner,  and  who 
was  killed  on  the  spot,  was  my  mother !  It  was  quite  a  chance  my  being  at  the 
meeting  this  afternoon,  as  I  am  not  a  member  of  the  Society,  and  it  will  probably 
be  the  only  meeting  I  shall  be  able  to  attend  this  year,  as  I  live  altogether  in 
Ireland.  On  coming  back  here  this  afternoon  I  said  to  my  father,  "Did  you  ever 
meet  a  Miss  Shuttleworth?"  and  on  hearing  he  had  done  so,  I  proceeded  to  tell  him 
of  this  afternoon's  meeting.  He  says  he  remembers  having  spoken  to  Miss  S.  about 
engines.  .  .  . 

April  25,  1898. 
.It  was  either  in  '71  or  '72.    My  mother  was  on  a  small  traction  engine  built 

by  her  cousins,  the  present  Lord and  his  brothers,  and  in  turning  a  corner,  she 

put  up  her  hand  to  steady  her  hat,  and  in  so  doing,  she  lost  her  balance  and  fell  off 
the  engine — being  killed  on  the  spot. 

I  thought  it  odd  the  other  day  that  this  should  be  alluded  to  at  the  one  meet- 
ing of  the  year  at  which  I  happened  to  be  present,  and  that  the  subject  of  the  meet- 
ing should  be  "Coincidences."     (p.  202). 

Cases  8  and  9  together,  as  their  contents  show,  are  very  curious, 
and  recall  an  experience  recorded  by  Professor  Jastrow.  He  had  just 
stated  a  generalization  to  the  effect  that  coincidences  in  a  certain  field 
become  remarkably  frequent  as  a  result  of  a  strong  interest  in  that 
direction  :202 

( 10)  Some  years  ago  I  became  interested  in  cases  of  extreme  longevity,  par- 
ticularly of  centenarianism,  and  for  some  months  every  conversation  seemed  to 
lead  to  this  topic,  and  every  magazine  and  newspaper  offered  some  new  item  about 
old  people.  Nowadays  my  interest  is  transferred  to  other  themes;  but  the  para- 
grapher  continues  quite  creditably  to  meet  my  present  wants,  and  the  centenarians 
have  vanished.  When  I  am  writing  about  coincidences,  I  become  keen  to  observe 
them ;  such  for  example  as  this :  I  was  reading  for  the  second  time  an  article  on 
"Mental  Telegraphy"  (by  Mark  Twain  in  Harper's  Monthly  Magazine,  December, 
1891)  :  I  was  occupied  with  what  is  there  described  as  a  most  wonderful  coinci- 
dence, the  nearly  simultaneous  origination  by  the  author  and  by  Mr.  William  H. 
Wright  of  a  similar  literary  venture,— when  I  happened  to  take  my  eyes  from  the 
page  and  saw  on  my  desk  a  visiting-card  bearing  the  name,  "W.  H.  Wright."  It 
was  not  the  same  W.  H.  Wright,  but  a  gentleman  whom  I  had  met  for  the  first 
time  a  few  hours  before,  and  have  not  seen  since.  Had  I  not  been  especially  in- 
terested in  this  article  and  its  subject,  the  identity  of  the  names  would  certainly 
have  escaped  my  attention,  and  there  would  have  been  no  coincidence  to  record, 
(p.  89). 


202  Jastrow:    Fact  and  Fable  in  Psychology.     Boston,  1000. 


THE  INFINITESIMAL   PROBABILITY  355 

The  following  three  cases  were  quoted  by  Miss  Johnson  :203  the  first 
from  The  Spectator  (August  27,  1898)  ;  the  second  from  "Over  the  Tea- 
cups," by  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  (3d  ed..  1891,  pp.  18  ff. );  and  the 
third  from  Notes  and  Queries  (1895,  8:270)  : 

(11)  Waldron  Rectory,  Sussex,  August  22A. 

.  .  .  Many  years  ago,  when  at  Oxford,  my  father  gave  me  as  a  heirloom  a 
ring  presented  to  him  by  an  old  friend,  and  bearing  an  inscription  stating  that  it 
contained  the  hair  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington.  This  ring  I  gave  to  my  wife  on  our 
marriage  in  1876.  In  October,  1879,  when  we  were  on  a  visit  to  Mr.  W.  Arkwright, 
of  Sutton  Scarsdale,  my  wife  felt  the  ring  slip  off  her  finger  at  the  dinner-table, 
and  although  careful  search  was  made,  nothing  more  was  seen  or  heard  of  it  for 
eighteen  years,  so  far  as  we  were  concerned. 

At  the  commencement  of  this  year,  however,  my  wife  received  a  letter  from 
her  half-sister  (Mrs.  Hodge)  in  New  Zealand,  which  stated  incidentally  that  a 
church  in  which  she  was  interested  out  there  had  received  unexpected  help  some 
years  ago  from  a  curious  source.  Her  sister  (Miss  White)  had  sent  out  from 
England  at  her  request  some  gloves  purchased  at  Bide's  [a  London  shop],  and  on 
trying  on  a  pair  of  these  gloves  she,  to  her  astonishment,  found  inside  one  of  them 
a  ring  containing  the  hair  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  which  had  evidently  been 
drawn  off  the  finger  unconsciously  by  some  one  trying  on  the  glove  at  Bide's. 
Unable  to  find  the  owner  of  the  ring  and  not  liking  to  keep  it,  Mrs.  Hodge  thought 
it  would  be  a  fair  thing  to  sell  it  and  apply  the  proceeds  to  the  church  fund.  She 
did  so  and  the  purchaser  was  a  Mr.  Frank  Arkwright,  of  Overton,  Marston,  New 
Zealand,  whose  grandmother  had  given  the  ring  to  my  father,  and  who  has  most 
kindly  replaced  it  in  my  possession. 

Now,  here  are  a  series  of  coincidences  which  are  only  likely  to  happen  once 
in  a  life-time.  That  of  all  the  thousands  of  people  who  purchase  gloves  my 
wife's  half-sister  should  have  lighted  upon  this  particular  pair  and,  unknown  to 
herself  and  to  Bide,  should  have  sent  out  this  ring  in  them  to  her  sister  in  the 
Antipodes,  and  that  there  it  should  have  been  recovered  in  the  house  of  a  cousin 
of  the  Mr.  Arkwright  in  whose  house  it  had  been  lost  eighteen  years  ago,  surely 
goes  to  show  that  sometimes,  at  any  rate,  truth  is  stranger  than  fiction.  As  a 
minor  coincidence  I  may  perhaps  mention  that  the  letter  which,  by  the  merest 
chance,  happened  to  mention  the  finding  of  the  ring,  was  dated  from  Wellington,  in 
New  Zealand.     I  am,  sir,  etc.,  W.  J.  Humble-Crofts. 

(12)  One  evening  while  I  was  living  in  Charles  Street.  I  received  a  call  from 
Dr.  S.,  a  well-known  and  highly  respected  Boston  physician,  a  particular  friend  of 
the  late  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  vice-president  of  the  Southern  Confederacy.  It 
was  with  reference  to  a  work  which  Mr.  Stephens  was  about  to  publish  that  Dr.  S. 
called  upon  me.  After  talking  that  matter  over  we  got  conversing  on  other  sub- 
jects, among  the  rest  a  family  relationship  existing  between  us, — not  a  very  near 
one,  but  one  which  I  think  I  had  seen  mentioned  in  genealogical  accounts.  Mary 
S.  (the  last  name  being  the  same  as  that  of  my  visitant),  it  appeared,  was  the 
great-great-grandmother  of  Mrs.  Holmes  and  myself.  After  cordially  recognizing 
our  forgotten   relationship,  now  for  the  first  time  called  to  mind,  we  parted,  my 


203  Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  1899,  14 :  227-8,  278-9,  226. 


356  INDUCTIVE  PROBABILITY 

guest  leaving  me  for  his  own  home.  We  had  been  sitting  in  my  library  on  the 
lower  floor.  On  going  upstairs  where  Mrs.  Holmes  was  sitting  alone,  just  as  I 
entered  the  room  she  pushed  a  paper  across  the  table  towards  me,  saying  that  per- 
haps it  might  interest  me.  It  was  one  of  a  number  of  old  family  papers  which  she 
had  brought  from  the  house  of  her  mother,  recently  deceased. 

I  opened  the  paper,  which  was  an  old-looking  document,  and  found  that  it  was 
a  copy,  perhaps  made  in  this  century,  of  the  will  of  that  same  Mary  S.,  about  whom 
we  had  been  talking  downstairs. 

If  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  purely  accidental  coincidence,  this  must  be  con- 
sidered an  instance  of  it.  All  that  one  can  say  about  it  is  that  it  seems  very  unlikely 
that  such  a  coincidence  should  occur,  but  it  did. 

(13)  49,  Edith  Road,  West  Kensington,  W. 

.  .  .  Christmas,  1892,  I  spent  at  Southsea.  One  day  I  wanted  to  get  some 
envelopes  of  a  somewhat  unusual  size.  I  tried  some  dozen  stationers'  shops  in  the 
town,  but  not  one  could  supply  me.  I  gave  up  my  quest  in  despair  and  was  return- 
ing home  to  dinner.  I  had  nearly  reached  the  top  of  Palmerston  Road  when  I  saw 
a  small  parcel  lying  on  the  pavement.  I  picked  it  up,  and,  as  it  bore  no  printed  ad- 
dress of  a  shop,  I  took  it  back  with  me  to  my  apartments.  You  may  judge  my 
astonishment  when,  on  opening  it,  I  found  it  to  contain  a  packet  of  twenty-five 
envelopes  of  the  precise  size  for  which  I  had  fruitlessly  enquired !  My  sister,  who 
was  with  me  at  the  time,  can  vouch  for  the  truth  of  this  incident. 

Chas.  Jas.  Feret. 

The  following  case  has  just  occurred  to  the  writer: 

(14)  While  preparing  the  manuscript  on  this  section  dealing  with  Inductive 
Probability,  the  writer  met  with  an  experience  which  may  be  regarded  as  more  or 
less  remarkable.  He  had  filled  in  the  numbers  in  Fig.  5  *  and  had  just  finished 
filling  in,  in  India  ink,  the  alternate  compartments  down  to  the  0,  in  order  to  des- 
ignate what  compartments  are  black,  when  he  was  confronted  with  a  serious  dif- 
ficulty. The  compartments  he  understood  to  alternate  black  and  red ;  but  if  o  is 
made  black,  there  are  two  adjacent  compartments  black,  and  if  made  red,  there  are 
two  adjacent  compartments  red.  He  laid  down  his  pen,  went  home  (on  the  cam- 
pus) to  lunch,  and  remarked  on  his  dilemma  to  his  wife.  She  instantly  replied: 
"Why  don't  you  go  down  into  the  cellar,  look  at  the  Roulette  wheel,  and  find  out?" 
"Roulette  wheel!  in  the  cellar?"  "I  think  it  must  be  a  Roulette  wheel."  Sure 
enough !  A  strange  piece  of  furniture  unearthed  in  the  cellar  proved  to  be  a 
Roulette  wheel,  made  in  Chicago,  having  28  compartments.    Zero  is  green ! 

How  the  Roulette  wheel  came  to  be  in  his  cellar,  the  writer  at  the  risk  of  his 
reputation  will  refrain  from  explaining,  except  to  intimate  that  the  causes  (how- 
ever improbable  in  themselves)  were  neither  supernormal  nor  related  to  his  draw- 
ing. He  is  satisfied  with  the  statement  of  the  problem:  What  is  the  probability 
that  an  assistant  professor  of  psychology  who  gets  into  trouble  over  the  color  of  a 
Roulette  zero  will  find  in  an  hour's  time,  not  only  within  the  Puritanic  precincts  of 
his  university,  but  in  his  own  cellar,  a  Roulette  wheel  that  resolves  his  riddle? 

The  following  brief  report  of  a  "double-barrelled"  coincidence  was 


*  Shown  on  p.  328,  supra. 


THE   INFINITESIMAL  PROBABILITY  357 

sent  to  the  writer  by  Dr.  W.  W.  Campbell,204  director  of  the  Lick  Ob- 
servatory : 

(15)  Perrine  of  our  staff  discovered  his  first  comet,  and  in  due  time  it  dis- 
appeared behind  the  sun.  A  few  weeks  later  a  German  astronomer  re-observed  it 
(we  had  already  been  observing  it  again  for  fifteen  days)  and  sent  us  a  cablegram 
announcing  the  position  of  Perrine's  first  comet.  The  cablegram  came  correctly, 
but  our  astronomer  who  received  it  made  a  mistake  in  translating  degrees  and 
minutes  of  right  ascension  into  hours  and  minutes  of  right  ascension,  and  the  er- 
roneous position  was  handed  to  Perrine.  Perrine  looked  at  the  erroneous  position 
the  next  morning  just  before  daylight  and  there  was  a  comet  in  the  field  of  view. 
This  turned  out  to  be  a  new  comet,  one  that  nobody  had  ever  seen  before.  The  new 
comet  was  traveling  on  the  face  of  the  sky  at  high  speed,  and  if  Perrine  had 
looked  at  that  point  on  the  morning  before  or  the  morning  after,  or  any  other 
morning,  it  would  have  been  far  outside  the  field  of  view  and  might  have  come 
and  gone  totally  unseen.     It  was  a  sort  of  double-barrelled  coincidence.203 

The  chance  of  a  miscalculation  locating  a  point  in  the  path  of  a  comet, 
and  an  unknown  one,  is  certainly  very  small ;  and  the  chance  that  the 
swiftly- moving  comet  should  occupy  that  position  at  the  moment  Astron- 
omer Perrine  made  his  observation  is  certainly  infinitesimal. 

Another  coincidence  to  occur  to  an  astronomer,  which  for  sheer 
downright  mischance  can  scarcely  be  excelled,  has  been  quoted  from  De 
Morgan  by  Proctor  :2oe 

(16)  An  old  woman  came  to  Flamsteed,  the  first  Astronomer-Royal,  to  ask 
him  whereabouts  a  certain  bundle  of  linen  might  be,  which  she  had  lost.  Flam- 
steed  determined  to  show  the  folly  of  that  belief  in  astrology  which  had  led  her 
to  Greenwich  Observatory  (under  some  misapprehension  as  to  the  duties  of  an 
Astronomer-Royal).    He  "drew  a  circle,  put  a  square  in  it,  and  gravely  pointed  out 


204  To  whom  the  writer  hereby  acknowledges  his  obligations. 

205  A  more  detailed  report  will  be  found  in  Science,  1917,  46:36-37,  which  had 
not  yet  been  issued  at  the  time  the  above  text  was  written.  A  minor  coincidence 
in  connection  with  Comet  a  1896  is  also  worth  noting,  since  it  points  to  the  de- 
pendence of  the  frequency  of  coincidence  upon  interest  in  this  direction  to  which 
Jastrow  has  called  attention.  This  Comet  was  discovered  in  February,  1896 ;  the 
coincidence  involved  was  reported  in  The  Observatory  in  1903  (26:293-4)  ar>d  not 
likely  to  become  generally  known ;  I  first  heard  of  it  at  a  dinner  to  psychologists, 
April  7,  1917.  Early  in  July  I  was  working  on  the  text  on  coincidences  and  wrote 
to  Dr.  Campbell  on  July  8th  asking  for  details  and  begging  him  to  publish  them  in 
some  general  scientific  journal.  In  his  reply  Dr.  Campbell  summarized  the  story, 
and  said  that  three  or  four  weeks  earlier  he  had  read  proof  on  the  article  which 
later  appeared  in  the  July  13th  number  of  Science.  That  my  need  for  the  coinci- 
dence should  occur  when  the  article  prepared  for  the  public  was  in  type  for  the 
first  time  after  a  delay  of  twenty-one  years  is  remarkable ;  and  it  is  no  less  re- 
markable that  my  appeal  to  Dr.  Campbell  to  publish  his  story  should  reach  him 
after  he  had  read  proof  on  it  and  just  before  it  appeared. 

206  proctor:     Chance  and  Luck.     1889,  p.  195- 


358  INDUCTIVE   PROBABILITY 

a  ditch,  near  her  cottage,  in  which  he  said  it  would  be  found."  He  then  waited 
until  she  should  come  back  disappointed,  and  in  a  fit  frame  of  mind  to  receive  the 
rebuke  he  intended  for  her;  but  "she  came  back  in  great  delight,  with  the  bundle 
in  her  hand,  found  in  the  very  place." 

The  following  case  was  quoted  by  Tuckett  from  the  (London) 
Daily  Graphic  (September  7,  1905)  :207 

(17)  Sir: — Among  many  strange  coincidences  which  I  have  experienced  in 
my  time,  one  of  the  most  singular  which  I  can  recall  at  the  moment  happened  to 
me  in  connection  with  a  play  which  I  wrote  some  twenty  years  ago  for  the  Ger- 
man Reed  entertainment.  One  of  my  characters  was  named  Robert  Golding,  and 
for  the  requirements  of  the  plot  I  had  made  him  the  sole  survivor  of  the  crew  of 
a  ship  called  the  Caroline,  which  had  been  lost  at  sea.  A  few  days  after  the  pro- 
duction of  the  play  I  read  in  a  newspaper  an  account  of  the  shipwreck  of  a  vessel 
named  the  Caroline,  which  had  gone  down  with  all  hands,  with  one  exception,  and 
this  exception  was  a  man  of  the  name  of  Golding.  Now  Golding  is  not  at  all  a 
common  name,  and  the  circumstance  of  his  being,  both  in  fact  and  fiction,  the  sole 
survivor  of  the  shipwrecked  Caroline,  impressed  me  at  the  time  as  being  a  coinci- 
dence of  a  very  peculiar  nature.     Yours  faithfully,  Arthur  Law. 

Is  the  nature  of  the  following  coincidence,  offered  by  Mr.  Beckles 
Willson  208  as  evidence  for  thought-transference,  any  more  peculiar? 

(18)  A  prominent  Chicago  journalist,  Mr.  F.  B.  Wilkic,  reported  that  his 
wife  asked  him  one  morning  in  October,  1885,  while  still  engaged  in  dressing,  and 
before  either  of  them  had  left  their  sleeping-room,  if  he  knew  anyone  named 
Edsale  or  Esdale.  A  negative  reply  was  given,  and  then  a  "Why  do  you  ask?"  She 
replied :  "During  the  night  I  dreamt  that  I  was  on  the  lake-shore  and  found  a 
coffin  there,  with  the  name  of  Edsale  or  Esdale  on  it,  and  I  am  confident  that 
someone  of  that  name  has  recently  been  drowned  there."  On  opening  his  morn- 
ing paper,  the  first  item  that  attracted  his  attention  was  the  report  of  the  mys- 
terious disappearance  from  his  house  in  Hyde  Park  of  a  young  man  named 
Esdale.  A  few  days  afterwards  the  body  of  a  young  man  was  found  on  the  lake- 
shore. 

Or  is  this  case,  which  was  reported  by  Bertram  W.  B.  Greene?209 
(  jq\  Paris,  December  4,  1895. 

In  August,  1889,  Mrs.  S.  was  staying  at  Newcastle,  New  Hampshire,  U.  S.  A. 
One  night  she  dreamed  that  she  received  a  letter,  in  an  unknown  handwriting, 
stating  that  she  had  been  left  a  bequest  of  $5,000,  but  that  she  would  not  receive 
it  immediately,  owing  to  certain  legal  formalities.  Mrs.  S.  remembers  that  the  let- 
ter caused  her  pain  in  her  dream,  as  the  only  person  likely  to  leave  her  money  was 
one  of  her  brothers,  of  whom  she  was  very  fond.    The  dream  was  very  vivid. 

On  waking,  her  breakfast  was  brought  into  her  room,  while  Mr.  S.  went 
downstairs  to  eat  his.     A  short  time  after,  he  returned  with  a  letter,  the  envelope 


2°7  Tuckett:     The  Evidence  for  the  Supernatural.     London,  191 1,  p.  120. 
208  Willson :     Occultism  and  Common-Sense.     London,  1908,  p.  65. 
2°»  Journal  S.  P.  R.,  1896,  7 :  257-8. 


THE  INFINITESIMAL  PROBABILITY  359 

of  which  was  addressed  in  Mrs.  S.'s  sister's  handwriting.  On  opening  the  en- 
velope, two  sheets  fell  out.  One  of  them  Mrs.  S.  immediately  recognized  as  com- 
ing from  her  sister ;  the  other  was  in  an  unknown  handwriting,  and  Mrs.  S. 
picked  it  up  and  looked  over  it  without  unfolding  it.  Suddenly  she  caught  sight 
of  the  figures  $5,000  in  the  text  of  the  letter.  She  let  it  fall  with  the  exclamation : 
"Why,  I  dreamed  that !"  Mr.  S.  states  that  the  expression  of  her  face  was  one  of 
extreme  astonishment. 

On  reading  the  letter,  it  was  found  that  an  uncle  of  Mrs.  S.,  who  had  died 
six  months  before,  had  requested  that  she  should  be  given  $5,000.  She  never  ex- 
pected anything  from  him  at  his  death,  as  he  had  four  children.  The  money  could 
not  be  given  her  for  some  time,  owing  to  legal  formalities.  She  had  not  been  in- 
formed of  the  request  before,  owing  to  the  aforesaid  formalities. 

Bertram  W.  B.  Greene. 

These  last  two  cases  are  inserted  as  typical  evidence  of  supernormal 
causes,  for  the  purpose  of  showing  their  similarity  to  the  preceding  coin- 
cidences, and  their  consequent  unreliability  as  indications  of  anything 
beyond  chance.  Sometimes  this  fact  is  sufficiently  realized  by  students  of 
coincidences  to  lead  them  to  generalize  it  so  that  it  also  covers  the  cases 
in  which  the  emotional  element  associated  with  consanguinity  is  the 
typical  index  of  the  supernormal  nature  of  the  phenomenon:210 

(20)  In  another  dream  I  found  myself,  without  surprise,  seated  in  a 
Protestant  church,  notwithstanding  that  I  had  some  years  before  become  a  Cath- 
olic, but  I  thought  I  was  greatly  concerned  in  keeping  the  place  next  me  for  a 
friend  who  was  to  join  me  there.  To  my  dismay,  a  gentleman  came,  "without 
with  your  leave,  or  by  your  leave,"  and  established  himself  in  this  place  in  a  per- 
emptory manner.  I  turned  round  with  the  intention  of  evicting  the  intruder, 
though  my  hints  had  no  effect  upon  him,  but  in  doing  so  I  observed  that  he  was 
Canon  Kingsley.  The  next  morning  the  first  event  that  caught  my  eye  in  the  news- 
paper was  the  announcement  of  Canon  Kingsley's  death.  Now,  I  knew  no  more 
of  Canon  Kingsley  than  of  the  Shah  of  Persia ;  I  had  seen  both  in  public,  and  I 
had  read  a  book  by  each,  and  there  my  acquaintance  ended.  I  had  not  been  think- 
ing or  talking  about  him.  It  could  only  have  been  a  kaleidoscopic  mixing  up  of 
images  in  the  brain — yet,  had  it  been  some  particularly  dear  friend  whom  I  had 
thought  I  felt  placing  himself  so  unexpectedly  by  my  side,  and  had  that  friend  also 
died  unknown  to  me  the  day  before,  it  would  have  been  said  by  all  ghost-believing 
people  that  it  was  the  actual  spirit  of  the  dear  departed.  As  this  was  certainly  no 
apparition  of  the  sort,  I  argue  that  in  the  cases  where  the  condition  of  affection 
enters  into  the  details  of  the  case,  they  are  yet  nothing  more  than  fortuitous  coin- 
cidences either. 

But  perhaps  the  most  overpowering  character  of  a  coincidence  is  the 
inclusion  of  a  number  of  coincidental  factors.  It  may  be  recalled  that 
Mark  Twain,  concerning  the  coincidence  alluded  to  in  Case  10  above,211 
said  :212 


""Journal  S.P.R.,  1885,  1:230. 

211  Supra,  p.  354. 

212  Harper's  Monthly  Magazine,  December  1891,  84:97. 


360  INDUCTIVE  PROBABILITY 

Necessarily  this  could  not  come  by  accident,  such  elaborate  accidents  cannot 
happen.  Chance  might  have  duplicated  one  or  two  of  the  details  but  she  would 
have  broken  down  on  the  rest.  I  cannot  doubt — there  is  no  tenable  reason  for 
doubting — that  Mr.  Wright's  mind  and  mine  had  been  in  close  and  crystal-clear 
communication  with  each  other  across  3000  miles  of  mountain  and  desert  on  the 
morning  of  the  2d  of  March. 

In  support  of  a  widely  operative  "Mental  Telegraphy"  he  instances 
the  independent  simultaneous  inventions  and  literary  creations ;  such  as, 
the  telegraph  by  (1)  Henry,  (2)  Wheatstone,  (3)  Morse,  and  (4)  a  Ger- 
man in  Munich ;  the  theory  of  evolution  by  Darwin  and  Wallace ;  Miss 
Alcott's  novel,  "Moods,"  which  had  to  be  extensively  revised  because  its 
plot  and  its  leading  characters  (even  to  names)  were  too  similar  to  Miss 
Crane's  "Emily  Chester,"  which  was  in  press ;  Voltaire's  "Candide"  and 
Johnson's  "Rasselas"  ;   and  then  queries  : 

Is  it  not  possible  that  inventors  are  constantly  and  unwittingly  stealing  each 
other's  ideas  whilst  they  stand  thousands  of  miles  asunder?     (p.  98). 

The  primary  question  to  settle  is  whether  this  particular  extra- 
chance  cause  is  operative.  Until  that  fact  is  established  to  the  satisfac- 
tion of  science,  the  possibility  of  its  operation  is  a  remote  consideration. 
Now,  of  course,  the  only  method  of  solving  the  question  is  by  tabulation 
of  coincidences;  and  if  reliance  is  placed  upon  cases  with  an  infinitesimal 
probability  we  must  be  sure,  in  the  first  place,  that  chance  is  not  the  sole 
cause,  and,  in  the  second  place,  that  all  other  extra-chance  causes  are 
eliminated.  Neither  of  these  requirements  is  met  in  Mark  Twain's  "elab- 
orate" coincidence. 

Before  bringing  together  our  argument  on  the  fallacy  of  the  in- 
finitesimal probability,  let  us  examine  an  elaborate  coincidence  which  is 
to  be  attributed  to  chance  causes  alone,  and  then  consider  some  of  the 
extra-chance  causes  which  cannot  be  eliminated  from  the  type  of  cases 
most  commonly  accepted  as  evidence  for  supernormal  causes. 

The  following  "elaborate"  coincidence  was  communicated  some 
thirty-eight  years  ago  by  Dr.  George  M.  Beard  :213 

(21)  The  first  letter  is  a  so-called  "April-fool"  letter,  as  the  date  suggests, 
and  is  wholly  imaginative.  It  was  written  for  amusement  purely,  and  obtained  a 
very  different  reply  from  what  was  expected. 

The  author  of  the  communication  is  a  well-known  merchant  of  this  city,  and 
a  friend  of  mine.  The  person  who  replied  is  also  well  known  in  the  region  where 
he  resides. 

This  coincidence  is  certainly  one  of  the  most  remarkable  of  any  recorded  in 
the  history  either  of  logic  or  of  delusions. 


213  George    M.    Beard :      A    remarkable    coincidence.      The    Popular   Science 
Monthly,  1879,  15:628  ft. 


THE   INFINITESIMAL  PROBABILITY  361 

202  Columbia  Heights,  Brooklyn,  April  I,  1879. 

My  Dear  Sister  Velina :  You  will  no  doubt  be  somewhat  surprised  to  receive 
a  letter  from  me,  but  I  have  a  little  matter  of  business,  and  if  you  will  attend  to  it 
you  will  place  me  under  Obligations  to  your  good  self. 

Some  time  ago  a  man  by  the  name  of  John  Nasium  lived  in  New  York.  His 
father  was  a  Southerner,  and  died  last  summer  of  yellow  fever.  .  .  . 

This  John  Nasium  seems  to  have  been  the  black  sheep  of  the  family,  and 
when  he  left  New  York  he  did  not  leave  a  very  good  record  behind  him.  He 
went  from  here  to  Toledo,  Ohio,  and  afterward,  we  hear,  he  went  to  Tecumseh, 
Michigan,  no  doubt  thinking  that  in  a  quiet  country  place  he  would  be  more  se- 
cluded than  he  could  be  in  a  city.  I  and  several  of  my  friends  would  like  to  get 
track  of  him,  if  it  can  be  done  quietly,  and  without  exciting  any  suspicion.  He  may 
have  changed  his  name,  and  so  I  will  describe  the  man,  as  nearly  as  I  can,  which 
may  be  some  help  to  you.  .  .  He  is  rather  tall,  weighing  about  180  pounds,  I  should 
think.  He  stoops  a  little,  and  is  slightly  lame  in  the  left  leg.  You  would  not  ob- 
serve his  lameness,  unless  you  were  to  pay  particular  attention  to  him  while  walk- 
ing. His  hair  is  a  dark  sandy  color,  in  fact  almost  a  red,  and  his  side-whiskers 
are  almost  the  same  color,  but  a  little  darker.  He  is  about  thirty-eight  years  of 
age,  but  really  does  not  look  over  thirty.  His  eyes  are  a  very  dark  brown,  and  the 
left  eye  looks  a  little  peculiar,  1.  c.  unlike  the  other — looks  as  if  some  time  or  an- 
other a  cataract  had  been  removed  by  an  operation.  To  look  at  him,  you  would 
at  once  see  a  difference  in  his  eyes,  and  yet  I  cannot  describe  the  difference  any 
better  than  I  have  done.  While  he  lived  here  he  usually  wore  his  hair  rather  long, 
and  carried  himself  in  a  style  peculiar  to  the  Southerner. 

Now,  perhaps  the  best  and  most  prudent  way  for  you  to  do  would  be  for  you 
to  go  up  and  read  this  letter  to  Uncle  Hiram  first.  He  is  a  very  careful,  discreet 
man,  and  he  can  make  inquiries  and  excite  less  suspicion  than  you  could. 

I  am  real  sorry  to  make  you  any  trouble,  and  much  less  Uncle  Hiram,  but 
this  is  a  matter,  if  it  can  be  properly  done,  which  may  be  of  considerable  importance 
to  me  and  several  of  my  friends,  and  perhaps  further  the  ends  of  justice. 

There  is  one  other  mark  which  may  aid  you,  which  is — this  man  was  in  the 
rebel  army,  and  his  forefinger  on  his  left  hand  xvas  shot  off.  His  nose  is  quite 
prominent,  and  he  has  a  very  mild  and  quiet  look,  and  he  is  the  last  man  you  would 
pick  out  for  the  scoundrel  he  is.    Yours  very  truly, 

R.  T.  Bush. 

P.  S. — Please  attend  to  it,  and  oblige. 

Shortly  after  this  letter  reached  its  destination,  Tecumseh,  Mr.  Bush  received 
a  telegram  stating  that  the  man  had  been  found,  and  asking  if  they  should  arrest 
him.  The  correspondent  had  not  observed  the  date  of  the  letter,  nor  did  he 
suspect  that  he  was  reading  a  novel ;  and  in  a  few  days  the  following  letter  was 
received : 

Tecumseh,  April  18,  1879. 
Mr.  R.  T.  Bush- 
Dear   Sir :     Velina   read   to   me  a   letter  Wednesday  evening   from  you,  de- 
scribing  a   certain   man   that   was   wanted   in    New   York,   who  had   recently   left 
Toledo  for  this  village. 

The  next  morning,  after  hearing  the  description,  I  informed  our  marshal  of 
the  fact,  and  requested  him  to  keep  a  lookout  for  such  a  man.     In  the  course  of 


362  INDUCTIVE   PROBABILITY 

half  an  hour  he  came  to  me,  saying  that  he  had  just  seen  my  man — with  sandy 
whiskers,  rather  tall — would  weigh  170  or  180  pounds — wearing  specs,  and  the 
front  finger  of  the  left  hand  missing ;  and  was  very  anxious  that  he  should  be 
immediately  arrested,  as  he  was  then  at  the  livery-stable,  for  a  saddle-horse  to  ride 
away.  I  told  him  we  had  better  wait  and  be  sure  that  he  was  the  one  we  wanted, 
and  also  find  out  if  we  could  whether  you  wanted  him  arrested,  should  he  prove 
to  be  the  right  man.  I  saw  the  man,  and  he  answered  the  description  so  well,  even 
to  the  finger,  that  I  thought  best  to  telegraph  you  for  instructions.  The  marshal, 
in  the  meantime,  was  to  keep  his  eye  on  him  (as  he  failed  to  get  a  horse).  Seeing 
him  walk  down  to  dinner  with  one  of  our  townsmen,  the  first  opportunity  he  made 
some  inquiries  of  this  townsman,  and  found  that  he  was  not  the  man — that  he  was 
the  cousin  of  this  man  that  took  him  to  dinner,  and  was  brother  to  a  Mrs.  Palmer, 
whom  he  was  visiting — that  he  lives  in  South  Cleveland,  Ohio,  and  is  a  lawyer  by 
profession. 

That  he  answered  the  description,  both  in  size  and  the  loss  of  the  finger,  as 
well  as  the  color  of  his  whiskers,  there  could  be  no  doubt.  Wearing  specs  we 
supposed  was  to  hide  the  defects  of  that  eye  you  mentioned,  and  he  looked  as 
though  his  side-whiskers  had  recently  been  cut  or  shaved ;  but  if,  as  we  were  told, 
his  home  is  in  Cleveland,  and  his  name  is  Hick,  why  of  course  we  were  deceived 
in  the  matter.  And,  if  his  friend  has  not  informed  him,  he  is  still  ignorant  of  our 
suspicions. 

Now,  as  this  is  my  first  experience  in  the  detective  business,  you  will  pardon 
the  blunder. 

Hoping  that  it  has  put  you  to  no  inconvenience,  1   remain  yours,  etc., 

H.  Raymond. 

The  one  striking  feature  of  this  coincidence  is  of  course  the  loss  of  the  fore- 
finger in  the  left  hand. 

Both  the  imagined  and  the  real  case  possessed  this  very  exceptional  peculiar- 
ity. This  is  a  subject  on  which  statistics  can  not  be  gained ;  but  it  is  certain  that 
in  the  whole  continent  not  a  small  roomful  could  be  found  possessing  precisely  this 
deformity  at  the  age  specified ;  and  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  in  the  whole 
world  there  is  another  person  thus  mutilated  and  at  the  same  time  possessing  all 
the  general  physical  characteristics  of  the  individual  described  in  the  letter. 

More  striking  still  is  the  fact  that  this  individual  did  not  reside  in  the  place 
where  the  letter  was  sent  (which  is  not  a  large  place),  and  was  there  by  chance 
only  the  day  that  the  letter  reached  there. 

Those  who  believe  that  the  mathematical  doctrine  of  chances  can  solve  the 
complex  problems  of  coincidences  will  find  in  this  case  material  for  consideration. 
...  It  is  to  be  recognized  that  coincidences  of  the  most  extraordinary  character 
and  astonishing  nature  are  liable  to  occur  at  any  instant,  and  that  they  are  as  likely 
to  occur  on  the  first  trial  as  on  the  last  of  a  long  series. 

A  second  point  of  great  psychological  interest  in  this  case  is  the  attempt  made 
by  the  person  to  whom  the  letter  was  addressed  to  overlook  certain  discrepancies 
between  the  imaginary  and  real  individual,  and  to  twist  and  pervert  and  reason 
upon  the  facts  of  the  case,  so  as  to  bring  them  into  harmony  with  what  he  was 
expecting  to  see.  While  the  man  corresponded  to  the  description  in  size,  in  the 
color  of  his  whiskers,  and  especially  in  the  loss  of  his  finger,  he  did  not  corre- 
spond in  the  fact  that  he  wore  spectacles  and  had  no  side-whiskers.    The  detective 


THE   INFINITESIMAL  PROBABILITY  363 

reasoned  that  he  wore  spectacles  to  hide  the  defect  in  the  eye,  which  defect  he  did 
not  see;  and  he  assumed,  on  thought,  that  the  side-whiskers  had  been  recently 
shaved  or  cut.  Nothing  is  said  of  his  stooping,  or  of  his  being  lame  in  the  left 
leg,  or  of  the  color  of  his  hair,  or  of  its  length. 

The  bearings  of  this  whole  history  on  the  delusions  of  clairvoyance  and  mind- 
reading  are  apparent.  ...  A  successful  coincidence  of  this  kind  would  have  made 
fortune  and  favor  for  any  clairvoyant  or  mind-reader. 

From  this  exhibit  of  coincidences,  which  could  be  indefinitely  ex- 
tended, one  might  reasonably  infer  that  chance  is  not  only  capable  of 
providing,  but  is  constantly  providing,  coincidences  which  have  an  in- 
finitesimal probability,  and  his  inference  would  be  in  accord  with  the  law 
of  chances  which  provides  for  the  occurrence  of  such  events,  in  any  given 
series  of  indefinite  length,  some  time  or  other.  Within  our  field  of  ob- 
servation there  is  an  indefinite  number  of  series  of  indefinite  length  in 
constant  process ;  the  infinite  simally  probable  events  in  the  aggregate  of 
these  various  series  may  be  expected  to  occur  frequently.  "The  im- 
probable is  to  be  expected  in  its  proper  proportion."  Consequently,  as 
long  as  the  series  in  which  the  event  is  expected  to  occur  is  not  specified, 
or  the  probability  of  occurrence  of  the  event  cannot  be  calculated,  nothing 
can  be  inferred  from  the  frequency  of  such  events. 

Let  the  series  be  designated,  and  if  the  frequency  of  occurrence  is 
beyond  the  limit  of  chance  deviation,  some  evidence  for  an  extra-chance 
cause  is  adduced.  But  many  other  causes,  besides  telepathy  or  lucidity 
or  communication  from  excarnate  intelligences,  are  known  to  be  present, 
in  the  most  typical  illustrations  of  supernormal  causes,  and  unless  they 
are  excluded  the  evidence  is  inconclusive. 

Common  associations,  common  characteristics  in  mental  processes 
(such  as  inference),  common  interests,  and  common  desires  and  ideals, 
are  all  potent  factors  working  for  startling  coincidences.  Had  Mark 
Twain's  "remarkable"  coincidence  been  even  more  remarkable  than  purely 
chance  coincidences  which  have  occurred,  these  causes  would  yet  stand 
in  the  way  of  his  precipitate  interpretation  in  favor  of  thought-transfer- 
ence ;  and  the  same  may  be  said  of  most  of  the  coincidences  recorded  as 
evidence  for  supernormal  causes. 

Let  us  examine  again  a  case  at  hand  which  illustrates  how  the  force 
of  common  associations  of  ideas  among  strangers  may  raise  an  event 
from  an  infinitesimal  to  a  high  probability. 

If  three  given  ideas  (expressed  by  single  words)  have  occurred  to  the 
minds  of  160  persons,  what  is  the  chance  that  there  will  be  a  coincidence 
in  the  4th,  5th,  or  6th  ideas  which  occur  in  these  160  respective  minds? 
On  the  assumption  that  there  are  only  160,000  available  ideas,  p  = 
/460>ooo  =  .000,006,25, — an  infinitesimal  probability.     And  if  in  each  of 


364  INDUCTIVE  PROBABILITY 

the  three  aggregates  of  ideas  160  ideas  are  expressed,  the  probability  of  a 
coincidence  by  chance  remains  the  same  for  each  aggregate.  We  should 
expect  a  coincidence  in  iooo  aggregates.  In  our  word-association  ex- 
periment,21* in  which  these  conditions  were  fulfilled,  there  were  93  coin- 
cidences on  one  word  in  the  first  aggregate,  which  shows  in  that  par- 
ticular case  a  probability  of  9%60  =  -58;  and  18  on  another  word, 
making  on  two  words  alone,  p  =  .69.  Similarly,  neglecting  all  coinci- 
dences except  those  made  on  the  two  most  frequent  words,  for  the  sec- 
ond aggregate  />  =  .29;  and  for  the  third  aggregate  p  =  .19.  Or,  if  we 
consider  the  number  of  separate  responses  in  each  aggregate,  we  should 
expect  160  separate  and  distinct  ideas  in  each  aggregate  if  chance  alone 
was  operative  in  determining  the  responses,  the  chance  for  coincidence 
being  />  =  ( i6o-i6o)/i6o  =  o.  But  the  total  number  of  words  used  in 
the  aggregates  we  found  to  be  not  160,  but  35,  68,  and  89,  respectively, 
making  the  respective  chances  for  coincidence,  p  =  .78,  p  =  .58,  p 
=  .44, — very  substantial  probabilities. 

Coincidences  in  daily  life  effected  by  common  mental  processes 
could  be  recounted  in  numbers.  Here  are  but  two  taken  at  random ;  the 
first  from  Royce's  "Report  on  Phantasms  and  Presentiments,"  215  the  sec- 
ond from  an  article  by  F.  W.  H.  Myers  :216 

(1)  On  the  day  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  address  at  Gettysburg,  I  was  walking  at 
about  the  time  when,  as  I  supposed,  the  exercises  were  taking  place.  Remembering 
this  I  tried  to  invent  such  a  speech  as  Mr.  Lincoln,  or  I  in  his  place,  would  prob- 
ably deliver.  I  was  astonished  the  next  morning  to  find  that  I  had  duplicated  his 
address,  from  the  third  or  fourth  sentence  to  the  end;  and  to  the  passage  "It  is 
for  us  the  living  rather  to  be  dedicated"  I  had  given  almost  exactly  the  words. 

(2)  While  this  paper  is  passing  through  the  press  I  have  received  Hellen- 
bach's  just  published  "Geburt  und  Tod"  (Vienna,  1885),  in  which  conclusions  much 
resembling  these  are  advocated,  with  some  singular,  even  verbal,  coincidences  with 
an  article  on  "Automatic  Writing"  which  I  published  in  the  Contemporary  Review 
for  February  last,  and  which  Herr  Hellenbach  cannot  possibly  have  seen.  That 
two  persons  should  independently  hit  on  so  bizarre  a  metaphor  as  "a  blue  and  a 
yellow  consciousness,"  might  seem  an  impossible  chance ;  but  see  Contemporary 
Review,  1885,  p.  234;    and  "Geburt  und  Tod,"  p.  66. 

All  these  psychological  causes  for  coincidence  are,  of  course,  greatly 
magnified  among  friends  and  relatives,  because  of  common  training,  com- 
mon experiences,  common  interests,  and  common  hopes  and  desires. 

The  influence  of  these  causes  upon  coincidences  that  have  an  in- 
finitesimal probability  is  but  a  special  case  of  their  influence  upon  judg- 
ment,  already   considered  under  the   head  of  "Explanatory   Considera- 


«"  Supra,  p.  307. 

*™  Proceedings  Am.  S.  P.  R.,  1889,  Series  I,  i:373- 

"«  Proceedings  S.P.R.,  1885,  3:27,  footnote. 


THE  INFINITESIMAL  PROBABILITY  365 

tions"  217  and  "Application  of  Mental  Habit  to  Experiments  in  Thought- 
Transference,"  21S  and  it  is  sufficient  to  our  present  purpose  if  we  insist 
that  here  (where  the  probability  of  an  event  is  infinitesimal)  as  elsewhere 
it  must  be  eliminated  from  the  data  which  receive  statistical  treatment  in 
search  for  supernormal  causes. 

It  is  obvious,  too,  but  it  cannot  be  too  clearly  realized,  that  the  data 
subjected  to  statistical  treatment  must  be  free  from  all  the  errors  result- 
ing from  the  fallibility  of  human  testimony,  including  mal-observation  219 
and  the  tricks  of  memory  22°  on  the  part  of  the  original  observer.  Coin- 
cidences in  daily  life,  such  as  have  been  enumerated  above  (from  No.  7 
to  No.  21)  and  their  analogues  in  the  field  of  psychical  phenomena,  are 
not  adapted  to  statistical  enquiry,  partly  for  this  reason,  and  partly  for  the 
reason  stated  in  the  preceding  paragraph,  but  principally  because  the 
probability  of  occurrence  cannot  be  calculated  and,  consequently,  no  one 
can  tell  how  frequently  they  ought  to  occur  by  chance. 

The  fallacies  underlying  a  reliance  upon  events  with  an  infinitesimal 
probability  as  evidences  of  supernormal  causes  therefore  are  as  follows: 

1.  The  events  most  frequently  cited  are  striking  coincidences  in  daily  life  sub- 
ject to  the  errors  due  to  the  fallibility  of  human  testimony,  and  to  the  operation  of 
normal  extra-chance  causes ;  their  theoretical  expectation  cannot  be  calculated,  and 
their  frequency  cannot  be  known  to  exceed  the  frequency  prescribed  by  the  law  of 
chances.  Owing  to  the  errors  which  they  include,  their  frequency  may  be  ex- 
pected to  be  high. 

2.  When  the  event  permits  a  fair  estimation  of  the  probability  of  occurrence, 
but  may  belong  to  any  one  of  many  classes  of  events,  the  frequency  of  its  occur- 
rence is  likely  to  be  regarded  in  relation  to  its  own  undesignated  series  (when  its 
probability  is  infinitesimal)  instead  of  in  relation  to  the  many  classes  of  events 
comprehended  within  the  field  of  observation  (when  its  probability  is  appreciable). 
These  events  are  to  some  degree  comparable  to  Cases  No.  4  and  No.  6,  above. 

3.  Since  an  extra-chance  cause  is  indicated  by  a  definite  deviation  of  the  em- 
pirical frequency  from  the  theoretical  frequency,  the  limitation  in  frequency  imposed 
by  the  infinitesimal  probability  restricts  the  numbers  in  the  pertinent  ratio  to  such  a 
degree  that  the  ratio  is  unnecessarily  unreliable.221 

The  disabilities  of  the  procedure  with  an  infinitesimal  probability 
are  removed  by  adopting  a  more  favorable  procedure  in  which  the  follow- 
ing conditions  are  met : 

1.  The  events  subjected  to  statistical  treatment  are  not  contributed  by  testi- 
mony, but  are  observations  recorded  by  a  competent  observer,  as  scientific  method 
demands,  on  the  spot. 


217  Supra,  pp.  281  ff. 

218  Supra,  pp.  291  ff. 

219  67.,  Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  1886-7,  4:381-495;    1892,  8:253-310. 

220 67,  The  Judge  Hornby  Case:     Nineteenth  Century,  16:89-91,  851-2. 
221  67,  supra,  pp.  332-3. 


366  INDUCTIVE  PROBABILITY 

2.  The  events  are  not  "selected."  They  are  all  of  the  events  of  their  class  that 
were  observed  to  occur,  and  their  observation  was  not  directed  by  interest  in  only 
a  part  of  their  class. 

j.  The  probability  of  occurrence  of  a  single  event  in  the  class  is  known  o 
priori.  It  is  not  small, — never  infinitesimal ;  preferably  less  than  .5  and  more  than 
.025,  or  within  these  limits,  including  both,  as  in  the  guessing  of  the  color,  and  of 
the  complete  card,  when  a  set  of  40  playing  cards  (court  cards  eliminated)  is  used. 

4.  The  number  of  trials  in  a  set  inspected  for  R  cases  might  vary  from  10  to 
1000  or  more;  the  smaller  set  being  preferable  when  a  "distribution"  of  R  cases 
is  to  be  inspected. 

5.  The  same  results  should  be  inspected  in  sets  varying  in  size,  for  per  cent 
of  R  cases,  and  for  a  distribution  of  the  R  cases  in  the  various  sets  of  the  same 
size.  The  formulas  given  in  Part  I  are  applicable  for  testing  for  an  extra-chance 
cause. 

It  may  be  seen  that  the  experiments  in  Part  I  meet  these  require- 
ments, and  perhaps  the  best  conditions  are  afforded  in  the  guessing  of 
playing-cards.  If  the  R  guesses  on  the  individual  card,  on  the  color,  on 
the  number  of  spots,  and  on  the  suit,  are  tabulated  separately,  the  prob- 
ability varies  as  follows:  .025,  .5,  .1,  .25;  and  should  an  extra-chance 
cause  be  found  its  association  with  color  or  number  or  form  could  be 
tested.  If  "control"  experiments  are  provided,  as  they  were  in  our  ex- 
periments, in  such  a  way  that  the  reagent  or  percipient  can  not  distinguish 
a  "control"  experiment  from  a  "regular"  experiment,  and  an  extra-chance 
cause  is  found,  its  dependence  upon  the  knowledge  in  the  experimenter's 
mind  could  be  determined.  The  further  variation  in  the  conditions,  as  in 
our  card  experiments,  would  permit  an  immediate  psychological  analysis 
competent  to  throw  light  upon  the  nature  of  any  extra-chance  cause  that 
should  be  found. 

The  card  experiment,  as  described  in  Part  I,222  is  commended  as  a 
most  suitable  means  of  acquiring  data  which,  if  treated  with  the  form- 
ulae derived  from  the  theory  of  probability,  must  certainly  resolve  the 
controversy  and  doubt  concerning  the  alleged  phenomena  of  thought- 
transference,  lucidity  (clairvoyance),  or  the  communication  of  discarnate 
personalities  capable  of  knowing  facts  in  our  world. 


222  The  Guessing  of  Playing-Cards,  pp.  48  ff.,  supra. 


PART  IV. 


EXPERIMENTS 

IN 

SOUND  ASSIMILATION 


There  he  could  sit  receiving  orders — as  it  seemed  to 
him — to  pick  up  a  hymn-book,  find  out  the  hymn  and 
take  part  in  the  singing  verse  by  verse  while  the  in- 
visible choir  were  singing  most  heavenly  above  him.  It 
was  especially  the  fine  strong  hymns  which  were  sung 
to  him  while  he  in  his  book  followed  up  every  word 
with  his  finger. — Bjornson  in  "Wise-Knut,"  pp.  29-30. 

In  the  ordinary  hearing  of  speech  half  the  words 
we  seem  to  hear  are  supplied  out  of  our  own  head. — 
James,  in  "The  Principles  of  Psychology,"  vol.  II,  p.  323. 


PART  IV. 
SOUND  ASSIMILATION. 


INTRODUCTION. 

To  those  who  wish  to  eliminate  all  sources  of  error  from  the  proof  of 
the  alleged  supernormal  phenomena,  such  as  the  subliminal  tapping  of 
thoughts  or  forgotten  memories  of  a  "sitter"  at  a  'seance',  as  the  tapping 
of  a  cosmic  reservoir  of  knowledge,  or  as  the  reception  of  verbal  com- 
munications from  discarnate  personalities,  there  is  a  highly  important 
consideration,  long  known  to  experimental  psychologists,  but  nowhere,  so 
far  as  the  writer  knows,  subjected  to  rigorous  and  straightforward  in- 
vestigation, which  involves  a  deception  of  the  ear  in  apprehending  vocal 
language.  It  is  an  illusion  resulting  from  the  psychological  process  of 
'assimilation'  to  which  perception  through  each  of  the  special  senses  is 
subject ;  and  since  it  applies  in  this  case  to  the  perception  of  vocal 
language  we  may  call  the  general  phenomenon  into  which  we  wish  to  in- 
quire "the  assimilation  of  sound  in  the  perception  of  English  speech,"  or, 
briefly,  "Sound  Assimilation." 

This  error  might  also  be  included  under  the  broad  term  of  "Mal- 
observation,"  a  matter  of  serious  discussion  and  of  experimental  investi- 
gation in  psychical  research,  especially  since  the  observations  of  Professor 
and  Mrs.  Sidgwick,1  the  report  by  Professor  William  James,2  and  the 
classical  experiments  with  Mr.  S.  J.  Davey  conducted  by  Dr.  Richard 
Hodgson.3  In  the  work  already  done,  much  has  been  learned  concerning 
the  possibility  of  erroneous  inferences  from  the  sensations  of  sight  and 
touch,  especially  in  the  dark  seance  where  they  commonly  receive  stimuli 
of  only  minimal  intensity.  But  the  possibility  of  erroneous  inferences 
from  minimal  auditory  stimuli,  especially  when  these  stimuli  purport  to 
be   language,  has   been   almost   completely   overlooked,   in   spite  of   the 


'■Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  1886,  4:62-74,  99,  103;    1889,  6:4,  5. 

2  Report  of  the  Committee  on  Mediumistic  Phenomena.     Proceedings  Am.  S. 
P.  R.,  1887,  Series  I,  1  :  230-6. 

3  Hodgson :     The  possibilities  of  mal-observation  and  lapse  of  memory  from  a 
practical  point  of  view.     Proceedings  S.P.R.,  1887,  4:381-495;    1892,  8:253-310. 

369 


370  SOUND  ASSIMILATION 

fact  that  much  striking  evidence  for  the  alleged  supernormal  phenomena 
mentioned  above  rests  upon  the  testimony  of  observers  who  were  exposed 
to  this  type  of  error.  A  couple  of  illustrations  will  make  this  clear,  and 
in  order  to  avoid  seeming  to  impeach  any  particular  testimony  ( which  of 
course  may  be  free  from  the  error ) ,  we  shall  make  them  hypothetical : 

( i )  A  sitter  in  a  seance  where  discarnate  personalities  purport  to 
speak  through  a  'trumpet'  or  in  an  'independent'  voice,  will  often  hear 
the  names  announced  by  the  speaker  in  so  weak  and  indefinite  a  voice  or 
whisper,  that  they  are  indistinguishable.  To  a  given  sitter,  however,  the 
sound  suggests  a  familiar  name,  that  of  a  late  friend  or  relative.  It  may 
be  a  very  unusual  name.  The  suggestion  is  so  strong  and  has  come 
so  unexpectedly  that  the  name  is  recognized,  and  the  veritable  pres- 
ence of  the  discarnate  friend  is  confidently  attested.  Other  names 
of  mutual  friends  may  follow  in  the  same  way  and  meet  a  like  recogni- 
tion, effecting  so  strong  a  semblance  of  free  communication  with  a  friend 
that  the  sitter  is  overwhelmed  with  the  sense  of  the  super-normal.  There 
was  no  "pumping"  on  the  part  of  the  medium ;  there  "was  no  guessing" ; 
the  sitter  "gave  no  information"  ;  he  was  a  complete  stranger  to  the  medi- 
um, who  could  not  therefore  "consult  a  blue-book" ;  yet  his  unseen  com- 
municant knew  every  member  of  his  circle  of  discarnate  and  incarnate 
friends !  Supposing  the  sitter  was  not  in  a  highly  emotional  state,  and 
did  not  have  a  strong  expectation  of  any  particular  names  before  the 
names  were  recognized,  to  what  extent  was  error  in  perception  possible? 
Is  he  safe  in  assuming  that  he  can  "believe  his  ears"? 

(2)  A  discarnate  personality  purporting  to  be  speaking  through  the 
'medium'  is  often  identified  by  a  phrase,  a  sentence,  an  injunction,  a  quo- 
tation, or  a  bit  of  song,  which  the  sitter  knows  to  be  characteristic  of  the 
personality  purporting  to  be  present.  What  risk  does  the  sitter  take  in 
recognizing  the  words?  Often  the  language  is  in  a  tongue  unknown  to 
the  medium  but  known  to  the  sitter.  And  after  communication  through 
a  tongue  unknown  to  the  medium  is  accepted  as  a  fact,  speech  in  a  tongue 
unknown  to  anyone  present  is  often  accepted  as  evidence  of  the  'control' 
of  some  discarnate  personality  to  whom  that  tongue  was  native.4  Assum- 
ing, again,  that  the  sitter  is  not  in  a  highly  emotional  state,  and  is  not 


4  Cf.,  Speaking  with  Tongues  (Podmore:  Modern  Spiritualism.  London, 
1902,  vol.  I,  pp.  257  ff)  ;  also,  the  Martian  language  of  Mile.  Helene  "Smith" 
(Flournoy :  From  India  to  the  Planet  Mars.  New  York,  c  1900,  pp.  195  ff.)  and  of 
Mrs.  "Smead"  (Hyslop:  Apparent  subsconscious  fabrication.  Journal  of  Abnormal 
Psychology,  1896,  I  :  202-6)  ;  and  the  Egyptian  language  of  Mr.  "Le  Baron" 
(William  James:  A  case  of  psychic  automatism,  including  "speaking  with  tongues." 
Proceedings  S.P.R..  1807,  12:277-297). 


INTRODUCTION  371 

keenly  expectant  of  any  particular  phrase,  to  what  extent  is  the  perception 
of  a  phrase  or  sentence  in  English  unreliable?6 

This  enquiry  is  not  so  theoretical  or  academic  as  it  might  at  first 
glance  seem,  for  it  grew  out  of  a  practical  effort  to  put  the  evidence  for 
a  case  of  glossolalia  (the  gift  of  tongues)  in  a  form  that  would  satisfy 
the  demands  of  science.  A  man,  who  is  a  devout  spiritualist,  highly  in- 
telligent and  with  a  practical  turn  of  mind,  moved  with  his  family  from  a 
city  about  a  thousand  miles  away  to  a  city  close  to  Stanford  University 
in  order  to  have  his  wife's  gift  examined  in  a  scientific  way.  Both  were 
convinced  that  "messages"  in  both  speech  and  song  in  foreign  languages 
had  been  delivered  through  her  mediumship.  She  is  intelligent,  and  of  a 
character  of  the  highest  moral  type,  but  she  knows  only  English.  They 
exhibited  affidavits,  sworn  to  before  duly  authorized  Notary  Publics,  at- 
testing specific  instances  at  specified  times  and  places.  One  affidavit  at- 
tests that  the  medium  sang  without  accompaniment  from  the  platform  a 
sacred  song  in  Italian ;  another  that  she  sang  in  the  Gottland  Island 
language  (a  dialect  of  Swedish  )  a  sailor's  song  composed  by  Anna  John- 
son, the  first  line  of  which  is  "Dit  ingen  syster  gar." 

They  realized  that  the  testimony  rested  upon  the  capacity  of  persons 
who  might  not  be  regarded  as  competent  to  make  scientific  observations, 
and  they  proposed  having  some  songs  and  discourses  in  unknown  tongues 
recorded  upon  a  dictaphone,  which  they  purchased  for  the  purpose,  in 
order  that  linguists  might  examine  the  records  with  care.  This  was  done, 
and  some  of  the  best  records  were  examined  by  linguists,  but  without 
identification  of  language." 

This,  then,  is  our  immediate  problem :  Given  the  English  language 
spoken  under  conditions  adequate  for  communication,  to  what  extent  does 
perception  of  words  depend  upon  the  sense  of  hearing,  to  what  extent 
upon  what  the  mind  supplies? 

Work  on  this  problem  has  been  carried  on  during  four  school  years : 
(i)  With  the  assistance  of  107  reagents,  40,500  experiments  have  been 
performed    with   "words"    or   nonsense-syllables.      The    following   table 


5  The  identification  of  a  phrase  in  a  tongue  foreign  to  the  medium,  but  known 
to  the  sitter,  or  a  phrase  in  song  would,  of  course,  not  be  so  reliable  as  the  iden- 
tification of  a  phrase  spoken  in  a  tongue  native  to  both  of  them. 

9  Records  have  since  been  made  which  contain  the  unknown  tongue,  the  name 
of  the  personality  purporting  to  be  the  speaker,  or  vocalist,  and  his  translation  into 
English.  But  so  far,  the  nationality,  and  the  period  of  the  personality  have  not 
been  given,  and  none  of  the  tongues  has  been  checked  up  by  competent  authority. 
As  soon  as  the  language  can  be  named  by  a  personality  who  speaks  a  known  tongue, 
the  records  will  be  examined  by  experts  in  that  tongue.  A  further  problem  arises, 
of  course,  as  to  the  adequacy  of  the  dictaphone  for  this  purpose. 


372  SOUND  ASSIMILATION 

gives  the  number  of  reagents,  the  number  of  sets  of  "words"  recorded, 
and  the  number  of  experiments,  for  the  respective  years : 

Year  Reagents  Sets  Experiments 

Women          Men  Total 

1913-14    18               20  38  123                   10,100 

1914-15    6                 6  12  54                    4,100 

1015-16    12               IS  27  127                   12,700 

1916-17    20               10  30  136                   13.600 

Totals    56  51  107  440  40,500 

And  (2)  during  the  last  two  years,  with  the  assistance  of  32  reagents 
many  experiments  have  been  performed  with  "simulated  English  text"  on 
dictaphonic  records. 


NONSENSE-SYLLABLES  373 


DIVISION  I.— NONSENSE-SYLLABLES. 


Method. 


The  telephone  is  now  in  wide  use  as  a  means  of  communication,  and 
its  reliability  is  attested  by  the  importance  of  the  transactions  (business, 
social,  political,  etc.)  which  its  patrons  commit  to  it;  and  the  dictaphone 
is  also  in  general  use,  from  which  typists  take  the  dictation  of  business 
correspondence  directly  upon  the  typewriter.  These  are  the  conditions 
which  we  chose  as  "adequate  for  communication."  To  them  we  added 
several  others:  (a)  the  perception  of  speech  enunciated  clearly  in  a  con- 
versational tone  at  a  point  25  meters  distant  from  the  speaker,  the  clear 
air  in  a  long  quiet  room  intervening;  (b)  the  perception  of  speech 
through  a  partition,  or  a  closed  door,  and  (c)  directly  across  a  table  in  a 
small  room. 

Now,  if  the  communication — the  perception  of  the  spoken  English 
words — commonly  depends  upon  hearing  all  of  the  sounds  spoken,  or  if 
the  recipient  of  the  communication  can  hear  all  of  the  sounds  spoken,  the 
same  sounds  could  be  recorded  without  error  when  they  are  pronounced 
under  the  same  conditions,  but  in  a  haphazard  order  (the  recorder  being 
given  all  the  time  he  needs  for  recording  each  syllable). 

For  material  to  use  in  these  communications  of  'scrambled'  English 
sounds,  lists  of  syllables  were  compiled,  the  following  first  ten  words  of 
which  will  show  their  nature  : 

1  chain  chack  pav  shug  pu  uv  su  ur 

2 tin  kaf  tez  duf  tu  uz  ku  uth 

3 jan  choom  cheen  gub  chu  un  ru  ut 

4 sit  lib  kire  chud  ku  ur  ju  uf 

5 nap  pooz  fabe  thul  fu  ub  su  uv 

6 stawv  hoongash  soje  tus  su  uj  du  uk 

7 sprain  reeg  lig  vutch  lu  ug  mu  us 

8 voze  keeliv  med  kun  mu  ud  shu  uk 

9 claim  koong  wung  sut  wu  ung  bu  ur 

10 kerr  chith  yajd  ruj  yu  ujd  chu  uj 

Each  list  (except  the  second)7  is  composed  of  100  syllables,  and  dif- 

7  This  list  is  composed  of  50  syllables  or  compounds  of  syllables,  and  was 
compiled  at  the  Museum  of  Anthropology,  Affiliated  Colleges  (University  of  Cali- 


374  SOUND  ASSIMILATION 

fers  in  some  essential  respect  from  each  other.  The  "chain"  list  contains 
58  words,  the  others  are  composed  of  nonsense-syllables.  In  the  "pav" 
and  "shug"  lists,  each  syllable  begins  and  ends  with  a  consonantal  sound ; 
in  the  former,  the  intermediate  ( vowel )  sound  is  varied,  in  the  latter,  it  is 
uniformly  the  indefinite  sound  of  "short  u"  (u).  The  "pu"  and  "uv" 
lists  are  made  up  from  the  "pav"  list  by  separating  the  consonant  sounds 
and  supplying  the  "short  u"  sound ;  the  consonants  of  the  former  list  are 
all  initial,  of  the  latter,  all  final,  as  they  are  respectively  in  the  "su"  and 
"ur"  lists.  In  the  "chain"  and  "chack"  lists  the  frequency  of  occurrence 
of  the  initial  and  final  (and  in  the  latter  of  the  medial  also)  consonantal 
sounds  is  very  irregular ;  in  the  "pav,"  "pu,"  and  "uv"  lists  the  fre- 
quency of  the  respective  initial  and  final  consonantal  sounds  is  quite  reg- 
ular, but  the  simple  sounds  occur  more  often  than  the  coalescent  sounds 
(such  as  pr,  spl,  It,  nch)  ;  in  the  "shug,"  "su,"  and  "ur"  lists,  the  fre- 
quency of  the  consonant  sounds  is  uniform.  And  in  the  "pav,"  "pu," 
and  "uv"  lists  about  all  of  the  common  simple  and  coalescent  initial  and 
final  consonant  sounds  used  in  English  are  included,  while  in  the  "shug", 
"su",  and  "ur"  lists  only  the  simple  consonant  sounds  are  included.8 

The  general  procedure  was  as  follows :  The  students  were  assigned 
work  in  pairs ;  each  member  of  a  pair  recorded  from  the  dictation  of  the 
other.9  Usually  each  student  as  experimenter  dictated  from  his  own  list, 
and  as  reagent  recorded  from  a  different  list  dictated  by  his  partner,10 
each  reagent  having  to  depend  wholly  upon  his  ear  for  acquaintance  with 
the  syllables  he  was  recording.  Each  pair  commonly  recorded  under  at 
least  three  general  conditions,  (1)  from  the  dictaphone,  (2)  from  the 
telephone,  and  (3)  through  25  meters  of  air-space,  and  in  the  order  in- 
dicated, although  during  the  first  two  years  some  variations  were  tried  in 
order  to  cancel  a  supposed  influence  of  practice. 

Before  the  recording  of  each  list  was  begun  the  adequacy  of  the  con- 
ditions for  communication  was  tested  by  communicating  and  finding  them 
to  be  satisfactory  (this  applies  particularly  to  the  25-meter  air-space,  and 


fornia)  San  Francisco,  for  the  purpose  of  testing  the  dictaphonic  record  as  a  means 
of  preserving  Indian  languages.  I  am  indebted  for  this  list  to  Dr.  A.  L.  Kroeber, 
to  whom  I  hereby  express  my  appreciation. 

8  The  "pav,"  "shug,"  "su"  and  "ur"  lists  are  given  in  Appendix  A. 

9  This  permitted  a  wide  range  of  variability  in  the  performance  resulting  from 
the  various  combinations  of  students  who  spoke  and  who  heard  with  varying  de- 
grees of  efficiency.  Their  results,  consequently,  might  be  expected  to  be  applicable 
to  the  general  conditions  of  the  perception  of  language. 

10  One  variation  from  this  procedure  must  be  noted.  The  lists  on  the  dicta- 
phones were  all  carefully  dictated  by  the  writer. 


NONSENSE-SYLLABLES  375 

to  partitions  and  closed  doors ;  the  dictaphones  and  telephones  were  used 
in  the  customary  way  and  were  uniformly  found  by  test  to  be  satisfac- 
tory). The  dictaphones  used  were  of  the  customary  commercial  type,  one 
an  Edison  model,  the  other  the  Columbia,  both  driven  by  the  electric  light 
current.  The  telephones  were  also  the  customary  commercial  instru- 
ments, the  dictating  being  done  at  the  wall  telephone  in  the  Psychology 
Library  and  the  recording  at  the  desk  telephone  in  the  Division  of  Psy- 
chical Research,  the  connecting  being  done  at  the  University  central. 

The  following  table  shows  the  number  of  the  various  lists  recorded 
under  the  various  conditions  of  communication,  and  the  number  of  ex- 
periments performed  with  each  list,  and  under  each  of  the  conditions.11 

TABLE  XCIII. 
Number  of  Lists  and  of  Experiments. 

chain  chack  pav  pu  uv  shug  sit  ur  lists  exp'ments 

Dictaphone    .  —  8  10  25  22  13  19  19  116  11200 

Telephone    . .  23  30  32  20  20  15  14  14  168  15300 

Air    9  25  24  20  20  14  14  14  140  12750 

Wall    1  1  1  —  —  —  —  —  3  250 

Table    1  6  6  —  —  —  —  —  13  1000 

Lists    34  70  73  65  62  42  47  47  440  40500 

Experiments  3400     3500      7300     6500     6200     4200     4700     4700     40500 

The  Reagents  were  students,  ranging  from  sophomores  to  post- 
graduates, drawn  from  Dr.  Angell's  large  class  in  General  Psychology. 

In  Section  I,  we  shall  first  display  some  of  the  results  obtained  under 
the  more  varied  conditions,  and  the  results  under  the  more  constant  con- 
ditions, when  the  syllable  recorded  contained  an  initial  and  a  final  con- 
sonantal sound ;  in  Section  II,  the  results  obtained  from  recording 
syllables  containing  an  initial  or  a  final  consonantal  sound. 

Results. 

Section  i.    Syllables  with  Initial  and  Final  Consonantal  Sounds. 

"Chain" — Telephone.  The  "chain"  list  which  contained  58  words 
and  42  nonsense-syllables  was  recorded  from  the  telephone  by  the  twelve 
reagents  who  had  not  heard  or  seen  the  list  before.  Out  of  the  hundred 
monosyllables  the  lowest  score  in  number  of  correct  records  was  34,  the 

11  The  "chain,"  "chack,"  and  "pav"  lists  were  given  in  1913-14;  the  "pav" 
and  "chack"  lists  in  1914-15;  the  "pu"  and  "uv"  lists  in  1915-16;  and  the  "shug," 
"su,"  and  "ur"  lists  in  1916-17. 


376  SOUND  ASSIMILATION 

highest  63,  the  average  51.3.  It  was  likewise  recorded  by  nine  reagents 
who  had  dictated  it  through  the  telephone,  the  lowest  score  being  50,  the 
highest  72,  the  average  66.7. 

"Chain" — Air.  It  was  recorded  from  dictation  through  the  air  (25 
meters  distant)  by  four  students  who  had  already  recorded  it  once  from 
the  telephone  and  had  dictated  it  once.  The  lowest  score  was  57,  the 
highest  88,  the  average  68.5.  It  was  also  recorded  from  dictation  through 
a  closed  door  by  one  student  who  made  a  score  of  21,  and  from  dictation 
across  a  table  by  another  who  made  a  score  of  64. 

"Chack"— Telephone.  In  1913-14,  the  "chack"  list  was  recorded 
from  the  telephone  by  twelve  students  who  had  not  seen  or  heard  the  list 
before,  the  lowest  score  (in  per  cent)  being  18,  the  highest  64,  and  the 
average  33;  also  by  six  students  who  had  recorded  it  once  before,  the 
lowest  score  being  6,  the  highest  60,  and  the  average  38.3 ;  and  by  six 
students  who  had  dictated  it  before,  the  lowest  score  being  32,  the  highest 
66,  and  the  average  47.3. 

"Chack" — Air.  Six  students  who  had  not  recorded  the  list  before 
recorded  from  dictation  through  the  air,  the  lowest  score  being  8,  the 
highest  48,  the  average  30 ;  five  students  who  had  recorded  it  once  before 
made,  lowest  score  26,  highest  48,  average  34.4;  six  students  after  having 
recorded  and  dictated  it  before,  made,  the  lowest  score  44,  the  highest  70, 
average  57 ;  and  one  student  who  had  dictated  it  twice  made  60. 

In  1914-15  no  student  who  recorded  the  list  was  permitted  to  see  it; 
but  each  recorded  it  three  or  four  times  in  the  following  order:  Dicta- 
phone, Telephone,  Air,  Table.  In  comparison  of  the  results  some  allow- 
ance must  be  made  for  practice,  since  the  reagents  in  the  preceding  year 
who  had  recorded  the  list  before  made  a  higher  average  score  than  those 
who  recorded  it  for  the  first  time.  The  advantage  was  about  5%,  or  about 
17%  of  initial  capacity.  The  results  are  shown  in  comparison  with  those 
of  the  preceding  year  in  the  following  table : 

TABLE  XCIV. 
The  "chack"  list. 

Dictaphone    Telephone  Air  Table 

1913-14.     Number  of  Lists —  (12)  (6)  — 

Lowest   Score   —                    18  8  — 

Highest      "       —                   64  48  — 

Average   (%)    —                    33  3° 

1914-15.     Number  of   Lists (8)                  (5)  (6)  (6) 

Lowest   Score   o                    10  8  52 

Highest      "       28                   40  58  78 

Average   (%)    9-8                 26.  30.7  64.7 


NONSENSE-SYLLABLES  377 

"Pav" — Telephone.  In  1913-14,  the  "pav"  list  was  recorded  from 
the  telephone  by  twelve  students  who  had  not  previously  heard  or  seen  it, 
making  the  lowest  score  of  15,  the  highest  of  55,  an  average  of  38.4; 
also  by  six  students  who  had  already  recorded  it  once,  making  the  lowest 
score  of  16,  the  highest  of  47,  and  an  average  of  34.2;  and  by  nine  stu- 
dents who  had  previously  recorded  and  dictated  it,  making  the  lowest 
score  of  26,  the  highest  of  61,  and  an  average  of  41.3. 

"Pav" — Air.  It  was  recorded  from  dictation  through  the  air  by  six 
students  who  had  neither  heard  nor  seen  it  previously,  making  the  lowest 
score  of  13,  the  highest  of  59,  an  average  of  37;  also  by  three  students 
who  had  recorded  it  once  before,  making  the  lowest  score  of  16,  the  high- 
est of  45,  an  average  of  30;  and  by  eight  students  who  had  recorded  and 
dictated  it  previously,  making  the  lowest  score  of  45,  the  highest  of  72,  an 
average  of  57.5. 

In  1914-15  the  "pav"  list  was  recorded  only  by  students  who  had  not 
seen  it,  but  most  of  them  recorded  it  more  than  once,  beginning  with  the 
dictaphone  and  following  with  the  telephone,  through  the  air,  and  across 
a  table.  The  averages  are  shown  in  comparison  with  the  foregoing  in 
the  following  table : 

TABLE  XCV. 
The  "pav"  list. 

Dictaphone    Telephone  Air  Table 

1913-14.     Number   of   Lists (   )  (12)  (6)  (   ) 

Lowest  Score   —  15  *3  — 

Highest      "       —  55  59  — 

Average     "       —  384  37  — 

1914-15.     Number  of  Lists (10)  (5)  (6)  (6) 

Lowest  Score    5  17  21  63 

Highest      "       15  45  59  79 

Average     "       n.l  316  37.8  70.8 

In  1916-17  the  "shug"  list  (which  contained  only  the  twenty  simple 
consonant  sounds)  was  recorded  by  students  who  had  not  seen  it,  taking 
their  records  in  order  from  dictaphone,  telephone,  and  air,  with  the  fol- 
lowing results : 

TABLE  XCVI. 

The  "shug"  list. 

Dictaphone         Telephone  Air 

Number   of   Lists (13)  05)  (14) 

Lowest  Score   3  2  7 

Highest      "       27  38  53 

Average     "       13-5  20.3  35.4 


378  SOUND  ASSIMILATION 

When  we  disregard  the  practice-effect  of  recording  the  lists,  which 
would  tend  to  raise  the  average,  and  increase  the  mean  variation  (MV) 
of  the  records  from  the  telephone,  air,  and  table,  progressively,  and  col- 
lect the  results  just  reviewed  into  aggregates  under  the  respective  heads. 
we  get  the  following  table  which  shows  the  number  of  lists,  the  average 
per  cent  of  correct  records  in  a  list,  and  the  probable  error  (PE)12  of  the 
average : 

TABLE  XCVII. 
Per  cent  of  Syllables  Correct. 

Dictaphone  Telephone  Air  Table 

Chack   (8)     9.8+2.16  (18)  36.8t2.78  (16)  30.2t1.98  (6)  64.6t2.56 

Pav   (10)   11.1io.51  (23)  35.2t1.70  (15)  35.9t2.47  (6)  70.8I1.21 

Shug    (13)  i3-5±2-«5  (15)  20.3t1.68  (14)  3S-4±2.5i 

There  were  400  records  (50  in  a  list)  from  the  "chack"  list 
recorded  by  8  reagents  from  the  dictaphone,  of  which  9.8%  were  cor- 
rect. The  probable  error  of  this  measure  is  2.16;  which  indicates  that  if 
experiments  continue  indefinitely  under  these  conditions  we  may  expect 
half  of  the  averages  of  an  equal  number  of  lists  to  fall  between  6.64% 
and  11.96%  correct  records.  There  were  23  "pav"  lists  (2300  syllables) 
recorded  by  23  reagents  from  the  telephone,  in  which  35.2%  of  the  rec- 
ords were  correct.  The  probable  error  of  the  average  is  1.70;  conse- 
quently should  an  indefinite  number  of  returns  from  aggregates  of  23 
lists  recorded  from  the  telephone  be  obtained,  we  should  expect  half  of 
their  respective  averages  to  fall  between  33.5%  and  36.9%  correct  rec- 
ords. 

From  this  table  we  learn  that  when  the  reagent  records  syllables 
which  begin  and  end  with  a  consonant,  under  these  varying  conditions  all 
of  which  were  found  by  each  reagent  to  be  adequate  for  communication 
when  the  sounds  came  in  an  order  to  make  sense,  his  sense  of  hearing 
enables  him  to  get  only  a  part  of  the  syllables  right ;  from  the  dicta- 
phone less  than  15%,  from  the  telephone  less  than  40%,  from  the  air  less 
than  40%,  and  across  a  table  less  than  75%.  Since  this  is  all  his  ear  can 
contribute,  and  since  when  the  same  sounds  come  in  their  accustomed 
order  he  can  record  all  of  them,  his  record  of  a  communication  must  de- 

12  This  probable  error  is  reckoned  on  the  mean  variation.  PEM  =  .845MF/Vn 
(MV  =  0.79790;  vide,  Davenport:  Statistical  Methods,  3d  ed.,  p.  116).  This  pro- 
cedure increases  slightly  the  effect  of  the  smaller  deviations,  but  reduces  consider- 
ably the  effect  of  extreme  deviations,  and,  for  the  purpose  of  the  latter  effect,  is 
consistent  with  Yule  (Theory  of  Statistics,  3d  ed.,  p.  146). 


NONSENSE-SYLLABLES  379 

pend  upon  what  the  mind  contributes  to  the  perception  of  the  words  for 
the  difference;  t.  e.,  from  the  dictaphone  his  mind  contributes  over  85%  ; 
from  the  telephone,  over  60%  ;  from  the  air,  over  60%  ;  across  the  table, 
over  25%. 

If,  then,  we  consider  the  amount  of  error  in  the  recording  of  mono- 
syllables 13  under  these  conditions  adequate  for  communication,  as  a 
rough  measure  of  the  contribution  which  the  mind  makes  to  the  percep- 
tion of  the  words  in  the  communication,  we  find  the  amounts  in  per  cent 
according  to  the  respective  lists,  as  follows : 

TABLE  XCVIII. 
Per  cent  of  Mental  Contribution. 

Dictaphone  Telephone  Air  Table 

Chack  90.2  63.2  69.8  35.4 

Pav  88.9  68.4  64.1  29.2 

Shug 86.5  79.7  64.6 

These  per  cents,  of  course,  refer  to  syllables.  And  since  these 
syllables  contain  an  initial  and  a  final  consonantal  sound  (excepting  in  the 
irregular  "chack"  list)  there  are  two  chances  to  miss  a  correct  record  by 
failing  to  perceive  a  consonantal  sound.  Let  us  see  to  what  extent  the  ear 
can  be  relied  upon  when  we  consider  the  consonantal  sounds. 

Section  II.     Syllables  with  an  Initial  or  a  Final  Consonantal  Sound. 

There  were  four  lists  of  syllables  which  contained  either  initial  or 
final  consonantal  sounds  only:  "pu,"  "uv,"  "su,"  and  "ur."  And  if  we 
take  also  the  initial  and  final  consonantal  sounds  in  the  "pav"  and  "shug" 
lists,  we  have  altogether  a  large  number  of  lists  which  may  be  considered 
for  the  purpose  of  determining  what  per  cent  of  consonantal  sounds  can 
be  correctly  recorded  under  the  three  general  conditions  of  communica- 
tion. 

The  following  table  shows  the  list,  the  number  of  sets  (of  100 
syllables),  the  average  per  cent  of  correct  records  in  a  list,  and  the  prob- 
able error  of  the  latter  value.  Line  5  gives  the  aggregate  number  of 
syllables  and  the  per  cent  correctly  recorded;  and  line  6  gives  the  like 
values  for  a  selected  aggregate  of  syllables  (those  containing  the  simple 
consonantal  sounds  only )  which  was  made  for  use  in  a  following  Section. 

13  The  syllables  in  these  lists  begin  and  end  with  a  consonantal  sound,  ex- 
cepting the  "chack"  list,  which  is  varied  and  contains  some  intermediate  con- 
sonants. 


380  SOUND  ASSIMILATION 

TABLE  XCIX. 
Per  cent  of  correct  records  of  Consonantal  Sounds. 

Dictaphone  Telephone 

Intial  Final  Initial  Final 

/.  pav  (10)  43.i±i.2  34.4±i.6  (23)  62.o±i.i  58.011.7 

2.  pu,    uv    (20)  39.o±i.3  18.710.7  (20)  46.0+1.6  38.o±2.o 

3-  shug (13)36.712.9  30.4*3-4  (15)47-9*2.6  41.1*2.5 

4-  su,  ur   (19)  38.2±i.6  37-i±i-4  (14)  60.4+2.7  57-3*2-7 

5.  Aggregate..    (6200)  38.9  29.3  (7200)   54.5  49.0 

6.  Selected  ....    (4490)  39-i        (44^4)  343  (5656)  58.4       (5604)  55.6 

Air 

Initial  Final 

/.  pav   (15)  7i.o±i.7  si.8±2.2 

2.  pu,  uv   (20)  68.7+.2.1  5S.O±2.7 

3-  shug  (14)  67.012.9  49-8*2.7 

4.  su,  ur   (14)  70.o±2.6  62.212.4 

5.  Aggregate  . .    (6300)  69.1  54.6 

6.  Selected  ...   (5132)  72.8         (5088)  59.6 

With  the  exception  of  such  variation  as  may  be  expected  under  the 
variable  conditions  of  our  experiments,14  a  fair  degree  of  consistency  is 
to  be  seen  in  the  values  in  the  table.  From  the  dictaphone  records  about 
40%  of  the  initial  consonantal  sounds  were  correctly  recorded,  and  about 
35%  of  the  final;  from  the  telephone,  about  58%  of  the  initial,  and 
about  55%  of  the  final;  and  from  the  air,  about  70%  of  the  initial,  and 
about  60%  of  the  final  consonantal  sounds. 

Taking  the  complement  of  the  per  cent  of  correct  records  in  the 
aggregated  results  as  a  rough  measure  of  the  mental  contribution  to 
perception  of  consonantal  sounds  we  may  estimate  from  the  preceding 
table  the  values  (in  per  cent)  given  below: 

Dictaphone 

Initial  Consonant   61 

Final  "  66 

These  per  cents,  however,  are  based  upon  a  fairly  even  distribution 
of  the  various  consonantal  sounds.  In  the  "pav,"  "pu,"  and  "uv"  lists, 
all  of  the  more  usual  consonantal  sounds,  both  simple  (as,  t,  sh,  m)  and 
coalescent  (as,  tr,  spl,  rd,  If,  nch)  were  included,  and  were  presented 
with  about  equal  frequency ;  in  the  remaining  lists  only  the  twenty  simple 
sounds  were  included,  and  their  frequency  was  uniform.  The  various 
consonantal  sounds  do  not  occur  in  English,  of  course,  in  this  regular 


Telephone 

Air 

42 

27 

44 

40 

14  The  "uv"  list  (line  2)  from  the  dictaphone,  may  have  suffered  from  a  dis- 
proportionate wearing  down  of  the  cylinder;  and  the  "ur"  list  (line  4)  may  have 
been  pronounced  in  the  air  with  emphasized  distinctness. 


NONSENSE-SYLLABLES  381 

way;  some  are  much  more  frequent  than  others,  and  if  we  wish  a  meas- 
ure of  the  mental  contribution  to  the  perception  of  English  words  we 
must  take  account  of  this  fact.  But  in  order  to  do  so  we  must  ascertain: 
(i)  the  per  cent  of  error  on  each  of  the  consonantal  sounds,  and  (2) 
the  relative  frequency  of  these  sounds  in  English. 

Section  III.     The  Respective  Consonantal  Sounds. 

In  order  to  simplify  our  inquiry  we  aggregated  all  of  the  records 
made  from  the  twenty  simple  consonantal  sounds  shown  in  the  table 
below.  As  shown  in  line  6  of  Table  XCIX  above,  we  had  from  the  Dicta- 
phone 4490  such  records  of  initial  sounds,  and  4424  of  final  sounds ;  from 
the  telephone  5656  of  initial,  and  5604  of  final  sounds ;  and  from  the  air 
5132  of  initial  and  5088  of  final  simple  consonantal  sounds.  All  of  the 
errors  in  these  records  were  tabulated  according  to  the  simple  con- 
sonantal sound  which  had  been  dictated  and  also  according  to  the  con- 
sonantal sound  which  was  substituted  for  the  dictated  sound. 

Table  C  shows  (in  per  cent)  the  frequency  of  substitution  for  the  re- 
spective sounds. 

TABLE  C. 
Per  cent  of  Substitutions. 

Initial :      p      b      t     a '    ch    j  k     g     f     v    th  dh    s  z  sh  zh  m  n  I  r 

1  Dictaphone  63   40  66  53    61    45  57    53   86   89   90   80   72  76  59  88   51  50  33  14 

2  Telephone  55  30  31  21  31  27  55  55  55  57  76  68  39  56  27  80  24  19  28  29 
,?Air     03    25    14    8   21    24  17    21    38    58    50   51    14  34  32  73    16  13  17  16 

Final : 

4  Dictaphone  60  68  67  72  53  60  75  68  83  68  98  96  80  49  35  80  54  48  68  40 

5  Telephone  59  41  37   35  31  47  56  42  65  59  92  91  47  45  31  70  29  26  37  22 

6  Air  53  51  38  35  30  40  39  32  63  55  82  82  25  28  31  66  29  29  31   8 

7  Frequency  2.0  1.3  10.  4.  0.6  0.1  2.0  1.7  2.6  1.0  1.8  1.8  5.7  2.2  0.3  —  2.3  6.9  3.6  6,1 

These  values  are  given  to  the  nearest  integral  per  cent.  In  line  /, 
the  sound  of  p  was  dictated  from  the  dictaphone  as  an  initial  sound  235 
times,  and  of  the  corresponding  records  149  were  wrong,  making  63.1% 
of  substitutions  for  that  one  sound ;  in  line  4  the  same  sound  was  dic- 
tated from  the  dictaphone  an  equal  number  of  times  as  a  final  sound, 
59.6%  of  the  records  being  wrong.  The  individual  consonantal  sounds 
were  dictated  through  the  telephone  301  times,  and  through  the  air  272 
times ;  consequently  the  percentages  in  the  table  are  reckoned  upon  these 
numbers.15     The  limit  of  chance  deviation  from  these  values  is  6%,  the 


16  A  few  exceptions  may  be  noted ;    in  the  aggregates  of  initial  sounds,  g,  th, 
dh,  sh,  and  zh,  were  not  presented  quite  as  many  times ;    and  in  the  aggregates  of 


382 


SOUND  ASSIMILATION 


standard  variation  is  1.4%,  and  the  probable  error  is  1%.  Line  7  shows 
the  relative  frequency,  estimated  to  the  nearest  tenth  per  cent  from  a 
tabulation  of  the  letters  of  the  alphabet  in  5247  words  (22,881  letters)  in 
English  text,  which  was  made  in  another  research.18 

The  amount  of  substitution   for  the  various  sounds  is  graphically 
shown  in  Plate  XLIX.     The  heavy  (upper)   line  represents  the  records 


Final 

~"\\ 

A\ 

60- 

^<S 

■£*j 

i^-V 

t-^  \ 

0. 

pbtdcbJkRf  VU1H1  Bziti±inlr 


pbtdchjltKfvfttls  zdizh  n  n  lr 


Plate    XLIX. —  Per   cent    of    Substitution    for   the    respective    Simple    Consonantal 

Sounds   heard    through   the   dictaphone    (upper   solid    line),   telephone 

(dotted  line),  and  the  air  (lower  solid  line).     (The  second 

th  is  vocalized  ;    elsewhere  represented  by  dli ) . 

from   the   dictaphone ;    the   dotted   line,    from  the   telephone ;    the  light 
(lower)  line,  from  the  air. 

The  order  of  the  letters  in  both  table  and  plate  is  that  of  Isaac  Pit- 
man, the  celebrated  author  of  the  system  of  phonography  which  bears  his 
name.  It  is  based  upon  an  analysis  of  "the  English  spoken  language," 
and  follows  the  physiological  order  of  articulation:  (1)  labials,  (2) 
lingo-dentals,  (3)  lingo-palatals,  (4)  gutterals ;  first  come  the  surd  and 
sonant  mutes  (whispered  and  voiced  explosives),  then  the  surd  and 
sonant  fricatives  (whispered  and  voiced  continuous  sounds),  and  finally 
the  nasals  (voice  emitted  through  the  nose)  and  the  liquids  (so-called 
because  of  their  facility  in  flowing  into  other  sounds). 


final  sounds  the  last  four  sounds  just  enumerated  were  not  presented  quite  as  fre- 
quently. In  all  cases  the  per  cent  is  reckoned  upon  the  number  of  times  the  indi- 
vidual sound  was  dictated,  however. 

16  The  frequency  of  />  was  1.956%  of  all  the  letters  (vowels  and  consonants) 
tabulated;  of  b,  1.332%,  etc.  The  frequency  of  c  (2.88%)  was  divided  equally  be- 
tween k  and  s.  A  third  of  the  frequency  of  J  was  transferred  to  :;  and  the  fre- 
quency of  th  (3.573%)  was  divided  equally  between  the  two  sounds  of  th  (th  and 
dh,  which  is.  of  course,  quite  arbitrary,  since  perhaps  97%  of  all  occurrences  of  th 
in  English  text  has  the  vocalized  sound,  owing  to  the  frequency  of  the  words  the, 
this,  that,  and  perhaps  85%  of  its  occurrences  in  names  has  the  other  sound,  as  in 
Ruth,  Dorothy,  Katherine,  Edith,  Arthur,  Martha,  Elizabeth,  Timothy,  Bertha,  etc. 
The  zh  is  so  rare  that  we  may  disregard  it. 

The  values  in  Table  XCIX  indicate  that  the  final  consonantal  sounds 
are  as  a  whole  more  difficult  to  record  correctlv  than  the  initial,  and  an 


NONSENSE-SYLLABLES  383 

examination  of  the  curves  in  the  two  parts  of  Plate  XLIX  will  suggest 
that  the  final  sounds  as  a  whole  differ  from  the  initial.  This  is  true  both 
physiologically  and  phonetically.  A  surd  mute  as  initial  (as  in  tea)  for 
example,  is  produced  by  an  explosion  of  the  breath  from  the  barrier 
formed  by  the  tongue  and  teeth  which  immediately  issues  in  vocalized 
sound,  while  as  final  (as  in  at),  it  is  produced  by  an  occlusion  of  the 
vocalized  breath  followed  by  an  explosion  of  breath  which  is  not  vocal- 
ized. And  it  is  quite  certain  that  the  three  general  conditions  varied  not 
only  with  respect  to  the  relative  indefiniteness  of  the  respective  sounds  in 
each  respective  class  (initial  or  final)  but  also  with  respect  to  the  relative 
indefiniteness  of  the  initial  and  final  sounds  of  the  respective  letters.  For 
example,  the  final  mutes  which  were  only  moderately  more  difficult  than 
the  initial  mutes  to  record  from  the  dictaphone  and  the  telephone  were 
much  harder  from  the  air;  the  two  initial  sounds  of  th,  which  were  mod- 
erately more  difficult  than  the  corresponding  final  sounds  to  record  from 
the  dictaphone,  increased  in  relative  difficulty  from  the  telephone,  and 
still  more  from  the  air.  Final  r  was  much  more  obscure  than  initial  r 
from  the  dictaphone,  but  was  less  obscure  from  the  telephone  and  the 
air.  Final  v,  which  from  the  telephone  and  the  air  was  about  equal  in  in- 
definiteness to  initial  v,  from  the  dictaphone  is  relatively  much  less  in- 
definite. 

Line  7  in  Table  C  gives  the  estimated  frequency  of  the  sounds  in 
English  text  without  respect  to  whether  they  are  initial  or  final  in  the 
syllable.  It  will  therefore  be  necessary  to  assume  a  ratio  for  the  whole  of 
the  sounds.  Suppose  all  of  the  sounds  occur  as  often  in  the  initial  posi- 
tion as  in  the  final;  then,  by  multiplying  each  value  (per  cent)  under  the 
respective  letters  by  the  corresponding  frequency  (also  per  cent),  and 
aggregating  the  products  for  the  six  respective  lines,  we  get 

TABLE  CI. 
Per  cent  of  error  in  the  perception  of  English  Speech. 

Dictaphone  Telephone  Air 

Initial    31.75  20.45  U-45 

Final    36.20  23.46  20.02 

Average    33S>8  21.96  15.74 

Consonants    51-50  33-25  23.80 

If  all  consonantal  sounds  recorded  from  the  dictaphone  were  initial 
sounds  in  English  speech,  the  ear,  under  the  condition  of  our  experiments, 
could  not  be  expected  to  identify  31.75%  of  all  the  sounds  (consonantal 
and  vowel)  in  the  dictation;   if  they  were  final  sounds  the  amount  would 


384  SOUND  ASSIMILATION 

be  36.20%  ;  or,  on  the  assumption  that  they  were  equally  divided  between 
initial  and  final  sounds,  it  would  be  33.98%.  The  corresponding  values 
for  communication  through  the  telephone  and  across  25  meters  of  air- 
space are  21.96%  and  15.74%.  And  since  it  is  only  the  consonantal 
sounds  in  English  speech  (about  56%  of  all  sounds)  which  fail  the  ear, 
the  per  cent  may  be  expressed  in  terms  of  the  consonantal  sounds  as  dis- 
tributed in  English  speech  (51.50%,  33.25%,  and  23.80%,  respectively). 
Our  conclusion  from  these  results,  then,  is  that  although  our  stu- 
dents could  satisfactorily  understand  the  communications  through  the 
dictaphone,  the  telephone  and  the  air,  when  the  sounds  came  in  their  ac- 
customed order,  and  could  record  all  of  the  sounds  without  error,  they 
could  not  hear  definitely  enough  to  identify  a  half  of  the  consonantal 
sounds  through  the  dictaphone,  a  third  of  them  through  the  telephone 
and  a  quarter  of  them  through  the  air.  If  they  thought  they  heard  all  of 
the  consonantal  as  well  as  the  vowel  sounds,  or,  if  they  thought  their  per- 
ception of  the  words  depended  upon  their  hearing  them,  they  overlooked 
entirely  the  substantial  contribution  which  the  mind  was  making  to  their 
perception.17 

17  On  these  more  subtle  psychological  matters  the  layman  is  always  skeptical. 
He,  however,  can  provide  himself  with  a  demonstration  by  having  his  neighbor  dic- 
tate to  him  in  his  customary  telephonic  manner  of  speech  one  of  the  lists  of  non- 
sense-syllables (in  Appendix  A)  over  the  telephone.  Or,  if  he  has  access  to  a  dicta- 
phone he  can  dictate  a  list  to  the  machine  himself  and  immediately  afterward 
transcribe  it. 

A  mature  student  (Mr.  B.)  who  was  skeptical  dictated  (on  December  6,  1915) 
the  "pu"  list  to  the  dictaphone,  and  immediately  afterward  transcribed  it.  He  got 
37%  of  the  syllables  correct ;  other  students  who  later  transcribed  from  the  same 
record  got  32%,  34%,  and  41%  correct,  respectively.  An  experienced  teacher  of 
stenography  and  typing  (Mr.  H.  H.  S.),  who  also  does  court-reporting  and  is  ac- 
customed to  transcribing  from  the  dictaphone,  transcribed  (on  August  3,  1917)  the 
"su"  list  which  the  writer  had  just  dictated.     He  got  42%  correct. 

In  Dictations  I  and  II  on  the  dictaphone,  in  the  following  Division,  was  the 
name,  P.  F.  Venn ;  the  closest  records  were :  P.  F.  Bent,  P.  F.  Venn,  P.  F.  Bent, 
C.  F.  Vent,  C.  Denning,  and  I.  Grant.  And  in  another,  were  ten  names,  the  follow- 
ing four  of  which  being  the  more  nearly  correctly  transcribed  (the  first  line  gives 
the  dictation,  the  others  the  transcriptions)  : 

P.  M.  Gray  D.  V.  Skake  S.  P.  Gates  V.  N.  Jack 

T.  M.  T.  C.  Skate  F.  C.  Gates  G.  M.  Jacks 

P.  M.  Gray  D.  P.  Skate  M.  G  Gates         G.  M.  Jack 

S.  C.  Gates  P.  M.  Jack 

F.  P.  Gates 
Whether  the  reagent  is  skilled  or  unskilled  with  the  instrument   (telephone  or  dic- 
taphone)  he  cannot  hear  many  of  the  consonantal  sounds,  and  must  therefore  de- 
pend on  the  context  for  them. 


NONSENSE-SYLLABLES  385 

If  the  student  is  asked  whether  he  heard  all  the  sounds  of  the  com- 
munication in  English  speech  which  he  has  satisfactorily  received,  he  is 
apt  to  reply  confidently  that  he  did  so ;  that  he  heard  what  was  said, — of 
course  he  heard  the  sounds.  But,  if  he  is  pressed  to  reply  with  respect  to 
all  of  the  sounds,  and  if  he  is  cautious,  his  confidence  is  likely  to  weaken 
and  he  will  reply  that  to  the  best  of  his  belief  he  heard  them  all ;  he  is 
not  prepared  to  make  a  definite  scientific  observation  on  the  matter. 

The  question  then  arises  as  to  whether  these  sounds  are  really  not 
essential  to  communication  and  are  elided  in  speaking  or  are  neglected 
by  the  ear,  or  are  really  heard  as  other  sounds. 

To  throw  light  upon  this  question  further  experiments  were  per- 
formed.   Their  results  are  detailed  in  the  following  Division. 


386  SOUND  ASSIMILATION 


DIVISION  II.— SIMULATED  ENGLISH  TEXT. 

It  has  been  noted  that  the  various  sounds  which  were  substituted  in 
the  recording  for  the  dictated  sounds  have  been  tabulated  so  as  to  show 
not  only  the  frequency  with  which  the  respective  dictated  sounds  have 
been  missed,  and  the  frequency  with  which  the  respective  sounds  have 
been  substituted  for  others,  but  also  the  frequency  with  which  each  par- 
ticular sound  has  been  substituted  for  each  other.  For  example,  p  was 
dictated  by  the  dictaphone  as  an  initial  sound  235  times ;  it  was  missed  in 
the  recording  149  times;  substituted  for  it  were  b  5  times,  t  40,  d  o,  ch 
2,  j  3,  k  34,  g  2,  f  5,  v  3,  J  1,  etc.  And  p  was  substituted  for  other  simple 
sounds  162  times:  for  b  11  times,  t  7,  d  3,  ch  4,  7  o,  k  1 1,  g  4,  /  38,  v  18, 
j  15,  etc.  The  tabulation  makes  a  coordinate  table  from  which  one  can 
readily  learn  what  sounds  were  most  frequently  substituted  for  what 
others,  and  thus  be  able  to  arrange  some  English  text  by  supplanting  the 
consonantal  sounds  with  the  most  frequent  substitutions  for  them  which, 
when  dictated  under  the  same  conditions  under  which  the  substitutions 
had  been  made,  should  so  strongly  suggest  the  English  text  to  the  re- 
agent that  some  of  it  at  least  might  get  into  the  record  not  as  "garbled" 
English  but  as  correct  English, — even  though  the  reagent  is  instructed  to 
faithfully  record  exactly  what  he  hears. 

For  the  preparation  of  a  dictaphonic  record  the  tables  of  substitu- 
tions of  initial  and  final  simple  consonantal  sounds  show  that  the  sounds 
in  line  /  of  the  following  table  should  be  replaced  by  those  in  line  2  if 
initial,  or  by  those  of  line  J  if  final  :18 

f  v  th  dh  s  z  sh  m  n  1  r 
th  dh  v  v  th  dh  ch  n  m  r  1 
v      1       —    —     z       dh    zh     n       m     v       v 

Suppose  the  text  to  be  forced  by  suggestion  into  the  record  is  "The  aim 
of  this  exercise  is  .  .  .  ,"  it  should  be  dictated  to  the  dictaphone  as  "Ve 
ain  ol  viz  epsevthidhe  idh  .  .  .  ,"  observing  the  vowel  sounds,  the  accent, 
the  inflection,  and  the  time-elements  of  the  syllables  of  the  original  as 
faithfully  as  possible. 

Such  a  dictation  was  made  to  the  dictaphone  (November  29,  1916) 

18  Provided  we  limit  the  selection  to  substitutions  with  the  highest  frequency, 
and  disregard  some  close  seconds.  The  vocalized  th,  as  in  the,  is  represented  here 
also  by  dh. 


(I)-—  p 

b 

t 

d 

ch    j       k 

g 

(2).__.    f 

m 

P 

z 

sh     zh     t 

d 

(3)--  b 

k 

t 

j       zh     p 

d 

SIMULATED  ENGLISH    TEXT  387 

while  the  prospective  recorder  was  sitting  just  beyond  the  closed  door 
taking  the  dictation  through  the  door ;  he  did  not  know  the  dictation  was 
being  put  on  the  dictaphone,  and  had  been  instructed  to  record  faithfully 
what  he  heard.  Line  /  of  the  exercise  printed  below  is  the  dictation  ;19 
line  2  is  the  student's  record  of  the  dictation  through  the  door;  and  line 
3  is  his  record  from  the  dictaphone  immediately  afterward : 

(1)  Vu  ane  oth  vith  etserthith  ith  pu  cho  kow  tersept  ith 

(2)  The  aim  of  viv  etxp      iv   a  cho  cow  persa   iv 

(3)  The  aim  of  this  exercise   is  to  show  how  perfect  is 

vu  zitpasome  ath  am  imspranemp  oth  tonnuniprashum.   Vu  thoith 
va  sitvasone  av  am  imspament   of  The  thoi 

the  dictaphone  as  an  instrument  of  The  voice 

theps  vu  ziaspran  oth  vu  kramthnipper  imko  thivrashum;    vu 

fef   va  viasfram  of   va  krapniber    imper  vibration;   the 

the  diaphragm  of  the  transmitter  into   vibrations.   The 

retordeen  bethith  oth  vu  kranthnipper  tomtherps  vu  thoumb  oth  vu 
retortion  devife  of   a  transnipper  converts     sounds  of 
recording  device  of  the  transmitter  converts  the  sound  of  the 

thoith  impu  imbemkachums  om  vu  wax  thilimber;   vu  meedle  oth 
voice  in  vu  of    wax  filament;   va  meedle  of 

voice  into  indentations  on  the  wax  filament.  The  needle  of 

vu  refrogoother  thollows  vu  drooth  oth  imbempations,  amb  vuth 
reprothuser  tholoes  thu        of  impentation,   am  vu 
the  reproducer   follows  the  grooves  of  indentations,  and  thus 

lekrogootheth  vu  lambwaj   vap  yuth  sporeb  im  vu  wax;  amb  vu 

the  proothes  thu  language  that  is   thored  in  thu  wax;  an  thu 

reproduces  the  language  that  is   stored  in  the  wax;  and  the 

spubemp  leporbs  vith  rambwaje  im  ripim.  Vu  atpurafy  oth  vu 
records  vif  rampage  im  writing.  Vu  atrophy  of  vu 
records  this  language  in  writing.  The  accuracy  of  the 

spubemp's  reporg  illusprapf   vu  lei iami 1  iky  oth  vu  zitpathome 
s        bepor  illustrats   va   liability  of  thu  zitrazone 
(hearer)        illustrates  the  reliability  of  the  dictaphone 

ath  am  imsprunemp  for  sporim  amb  leprobuthim  lambwaje. 
av  am  instrument  for  forming  and  distributing  language, 
as  an  instrument  for  forming  and  introducing  language. 

Now,  the  record  in  line  2  shows  that  the  reagent  understood  the 
instructions  and  that  he  exercised  a  fair  degree  of  skill  in  following  them. 

19  The   substitutions  were   determined   from  only   a  partial   tabulation   of   the 
data  which  have  since  been  completed,  and  differ  from  those  suggested  above. 


388  SOUND  ASSIMILATION 

So  clearly  was  the  dictation  "garbled  English"  that  after  the  third  word 
and  until  the  last  phrase  it  did  not  even  seem  to  simulate  English  text  hav- 
ing sense.  The  dictation  from  the  dictaphone,  on  the  other  hand,  seemed 
to  be  English  text,  expressing  meaning,  but  at  times  inarticulately.  The 
recorder  was  entirely  incredulous  when  told  that  the  two  records  had 
been  made  from  the  same  dictation,  and  was  finally  convinced  only  by 
holding  a  typed  copy  of  the  "garbled"  edition  while  listening  again  to 
the  dictaphone ;  even  then,  to  his  bewilderment,  the  dictaphone  occa- 
sionally forced  the  English  upon  him. 

In  experiments  of  this  nature  conducted  with  the  dictaphone  during 
the  last  two  years  we  have  obtained  data  which  are  pertinent  to  the  ques- 
tion raised  above  concerning  the  reality  of  the  auditory  impressions  of 
consonantal  sounds  that  are  not  there.  These  data  may  be  more  conven- 
iently presented  in  five  parts,  since  the  experiments  were  conducted  with 
five  distinct  texts. 

Dictation  I. 

The  first  dictation  to  the  dictaphone  was  transcribed  by  nine  stu- 
dents and  critically  examined  and  challenged  by  ten  students.  The  pro- 
cedure was  as  follows : 

( i )  The  student  was  told  to  record  from  the  dictaphone  exactly 
what  he  hears.  He  is  to  have  two  tries  at  it,  and  in  the  first  trial  space 
should  be  left  for  what  is  missed  in  order  that  it  may  be  filled  in  in  the 
second  trial  without  needless  copying  of  text  already  recorded.  He  was 
given  a  pad  of  composition  paper  and  a  pencil. 

(2)  The  dictaphone  was  started.  With  the  receiver  at  his  ear,  he 
heard  from  the  dictaphone  the  instructions  repeated,  and  a  signal, 
"Ready."  He  then  began  transcribing.  After  the  dictation  was  finished, 
the  carriage  was  returned  to  the  beginning  and  the  process  was  repeated. 

(3)  A  typed  copy  of  the  English  text,  which  the  dictation  was  in- 
tended to  simulate,  was  supplied  the  reagent,  with  instructions  to  follow 
it  with  his  pencil-point,  letter  by  letter,  while  listening  again  to  the  dicta- 
phone, and  to  make  a  short  vertical  stroke  under  any  letter  the  sound  of 
which  did  not  come  true.  In  a  second  trial,  he  was  to  record,  if  possible, 
under  each  challenged  letter  the  sound  he  heard  instead ;  finally,  to  esti- 
mate the  per  cent  of  consonantal  sounds  that  did  not  come  true. 

(4)  He  was  then  given  a  typed  copy  of  both  English  and  "garbled" 
texts,  in  interlinear  arrangement  as  shown  below,  that  he  might  examine 
each  alternately  while  listening  again  to  the  dictaphonic  record. 

Below  are  given  (1)  in  line  /,  the  English  text;    (2)  in  line  2,  the 


SIMULATED  ENGLISH   TEXT  389 

"garbled"  text  which  was  dictated  to  the  dictaphone;  (3)  in  the  under- 
scoring, the  parts  of  the  English  text  which  appeared  in  the  records  of 
the  nine  reagents  who  transcribed;  and  (4)  in  the  digits,  the  number  of 
challenges  made  by  ten  reagents  upon  the  English-text  sounds  immedi- 
ately above  the  digits. 

Dictation  I. 

(1)  This  is  an  exercise  in  correct  telephonic  communication. 

(2)  Zith  iv  am  echerfive  im  tozzek  kerethomip  tonnumiprajum. 


1      1      8  5   7   2        3      2   1 

Sounds  are  presented  to  the  receiver  and  set  up  vibrations  of 
Founj  az   hefempeb  ku  zu  wefether  am  fep  ut  thigrachumv  oth 


3    111         1  2  12 

the  diaphragm  which  are  electrically  conducted  to  the  transmitter 
vu  giathlan   wix  al  eregklitary  tombumteb  pu  zu  prampsnipper 


3    2  13        15        1         2  1 

from  which  a  record  of  speech  is  made.  It  illustrates  the  accu- 
prun  wits  a  breporg  ob  steex  ij  nabe.  Ik  ildusprapf   vu  atpu- 


2  2     2   3  3 

racy  and  reliability  of  this  method  of  doing  business,  including 
rafy  am  weriaviripy  oth  zif  nesob  oz  goim  vithmef,   implubim 


13538  12  6       1  121 

the  making  of  contracts  and  diplomatic  agreements;  for  example, 
zu  nating  oz  t.omprax   am  giflonapip  adreenemps;  thor  exantle. 


13  11  1  12  1 

Kindly  send  one  thousand  Ford  automobiles  to  the  Prussian  agent, 
Timbly  femb  wung  southumb Thorb  okonovilv  pru  vu  Prussian  azemp, 


3 

Mister  P.   F.   Venn. 
Nisper  P.   F.   Venn. 


It  is  true  that  the  English  in  the  instructions  from  the  dictaphone 
was  generally  understood  upon  the  first  hearing,  and  that  the  "garbled" 


390  SOUND  ASSIMILATION 

text  presented  difficulties  in  many  instances  insuperable,20  but  the 
"garbled"  version  did  in  some  measure  force  the  English  text  into  the 
transcription,  and  in  a  much  less  measure  suggested  other  content  which 
was  uniformly  English  and  not  nonsense-syllables.  As  the  underscoring 
shows,  all  nine  reagents  transcribed  the  first  word,  seven  the  second, 
third,  fourth,  and  fifth  words,  one  the  sixth  word,  and  none  the  follow- 
ing two  words.  The  relative  position  of  the  ruling  identifies  the  reagent, 
and  shows  great  variability  among  the  reagents. 

The  digits  show  that,  when  the  English  text  was  held  and  critically 
examined  while  the  reagent  was  listening  the  third  and  fourth  times  to 
the  dictaphonic  record,  the  sounds  challenged  were  mostly  those  that 
failed  in  the  transcription.  These  challenges  often  resulted  from  vari- 
ance between  the  English  recorded  in  the  transcription  and  the  typed 
copy.  Some  of  these  variant  editions  follow:  Instead  of  receiver,  Caesar; 
telephonic,  every  comic ;  contracts,  thumb-tacks  ;  including  the  making,  im- 
proving the  mating ;  set  up  vibrations  of  the  diaphragm,  head  up  by 
greatness  of  the  diaplan ;  vibrations  of  the  diaphragm,  migration  of  the 
giant-land ;  contracts  and  diplomatic  agreements,  subtract  and  it  will  hap- 
pen at  Reno ;  kindly  send  one  thousand  Ford  automobiles  to  the  Prussian 
Agent,  Mr.  P.  F.  Venn,  kindly  send  one  dozen  of  the  nodules  to  the  presi- 
dent, Mr.  I.  Grant. 

The  Introspections  that  were  written  by  some  of  the  reagents,  and 
the  numerical  calculations  based  on  these  performances  will  be  given  at- 
tention after  the  exhibition  of  the  other  dictations. 

Dictation  II. 

In  Dictation  II  the  simulated  English  text  differs  slightly  from  that 
of  Dictation  I,  and  the  substituted  sounds  are  almost  completely  changed. 
Only  three  students  transcribed  from  the  record,  and  five  critically  ex- 
amined the  typed  English  text  while  listening  the  third  and  fourth  times 
to  the  dictaphonic  record  and  challenged  such  sounds  as  did  not  come 
true.    The  general  procedure  was  the  same  as  that  described  above. 

The  following  shows  in  line  i  the  simulated  English  text,  in  line  2 
the  dictation,  in  the  underscoring  the  English  text  which  appeared  in  the 
transcriptions  of  three  reagents,  in  the  digits  the  number  of  challenges 
made  by  five  reagents  on  the  sounds  of  the  English  text  immediately 
above. 


20  The  major  part  of  the  difficulties  presented  were  owing  to  failure  in  the  dic- 
tating to  preserve  the  accent,  inflection,  vowel  sounds,  and  temporal  elements,  of 
the  English  text,  rather  than  in  the  substituted  consonantal  sounds,  and  to  the 
wearing  down  of  the  wax  record  through  ten  or  a  dozen  repetitions. 


SIMULATED  ENGLISH   TEXT  391 


Dictation  II. 

(1)  This  is  an  exercise   in  correct  dictaphonic  communica- 

(2)  Vith  ith  am  etsevfith  lv  tovekt  stipkasozit  tonnunita- 


1  2      11114  a 

tion.  Sounds  are  presented  to  the  receiver  and  set  up  vibrations 
shung.  Foungth  av  frethemted  ku  vu  vefether  amd  fep  ut  thifrations 


1  1112  1 

of  the  diaphragm,  which  make  indentations  on  the  wax  cylinder, 
oz  vu  stiaspram,  wits  nate  izstenkationth  oz  vu  whaps  firinger. 


i  i 

The  transmitter   reproduces   these  vibrations  in  the  speech  of 
Vu  kranthnipper  vrefrothutheth  veth  thiflashumth  im  va  steets  oz 


i        i  i 

which  the  written  record  ia  made.  It  illustrates  the  accuracy 
wix   vu  vikkem  vreporg  ith  nage.  Ik  imusprapf   vu  atpurafy 


i     i     i 

and  reliability  of  this  method  of  doing  business,  including  the 
amd  veliamiriky  oz  vith  nefob  oth  stewing  mithmeth,  implubing  vu 


112  1  11 

making  of  contracts  and  diplomatic  agreements;  for  example,  Kindly 
zaping  oz  tomprax  amd  stipronakip  abreenemps;  sor  etzantle,  Timbly 


1  2  2 

send  one  thousand  Ford  automobiles  to  the  Prussian  agent, 
femj  wung  fouthumb  Sorp  akonovilv  ku  vu  Prussian  azempt. 
_____       „      __        ___„       „___ 

The  underscoring  indicates  that  the  "garbled"  text  here  forced  into 
the  transcriptions  a  relatively  greater  amount  of  the  English  text. 

Dictation  III. 

In  Dictation  III  the  English  text  varies  a  little  from  the  preceding, 
and  the  substitutions  are  entirely  changed.  Two  purposes  governed  the 
dictation ;  ( i )  To  express  all  the  consonantal  sounds  by  the  use  of  but  six 
simple  sounds  (t  for  t,  p.  k ;  d  for  d,  b,  g,  dh,  v ;  s  for  s,  f ,  th ;  z  for  z, 
dh,  j,  v;  n  for  n,  m,  ng;  r  for  r,  1,  v)  ;  and  (2)  to  reduce  the  stimuli 
to  nearer  the  threshold  of  perception  by  holding  the  mouth-piece  a  little 
farther  from  the  lips  while  dictating.  Unfortunately  the  record  was  too 
dim  for  transcribing,  but,  owing  to  the  momentary  scarcity  of  blank  rec- 
ords, it  was  nevertheless  used.  Two  reagents  attempted  to  transcribe  it ; 
seven  critically  examined  the  sounds  while  holding  a  typed  copy  of  the 
English  text  and  challenged  those  that  did  not  come  true. 


392  SOUND  ASSIMILATION 


Dictation  III. 

(1)  This  is  an  exercise  in  correct  telephonic  communication. 

(2)  Dia  is  an  eteersize  in  torrett  teresonit  tonnunitatrun. 

~~i      --------     _.-....    ._. ...... 

Sounds  are  presented  to  the  receiver  and  set  up  vibrations  of  the 
Sounds  are  tresented  to  da  reseider  and  set  ut  didratruns  oz  za 

diaphragm,  which  make  indentations  on  the  wax  cylinder  and  thus 
diasran.    rits  nate  indentatruns  on  za  rats  syrinder  and   dus 

actuate  the  transmitter  to  produce  speech.  This  is  then  recorded, 
attuate  du  transnitter  to  troduse  steets.   Zis  is  zen  retorded. 

"1 i -----::::— -v.  ■.-.-.-..-.-.- 

It  illustrates  the  accuracy  and  reliability  of  this  method  of  do- 
It  irrustrates  zu  atturacy  and  reriadirit.y  oz  zis  nesod  oz  do- 


II  1  12  8 

ing  business,  including  the  making  of  contracts  and  diplomatic 
in   dizness,   intrudin  zu  natin  oz  tontratts  and  ditronatit 


i  ill 

agreements;  for  example;  Kindly  send  one  thousand  Ford  automo- 
adreenents;  sor  etzanta;  Tindy  send  one   sousand  Sord  autono- 


biles  to  the  Prussian  agent, 
dires  to  zu  Trussian  azent. 


Dictation  IV. 

(1)  To  be  or  not  to  be,  that  is  the  question:  Whether  'tis 

(2)  Ku  be  or  mop  ku  be,   vat  iv   vu  twestion:   Wever  'kiz 

"5        a    a  i       i     J 

nobler  in  the  mind  to  suffer  the  slings  and  arrows  of  outrageous 
modler  im  vu  nind  ku  fuffer  va  slings  amd  arrows  of  ouprageous 

6  6        a 4   i "~i      i  I     2       a~"  i    i  i 

fortune,  or  to  take  up  arms  against  a  sea  of  troubles,  and,  by 
sortune,  or  ku  kape  up  arns  abenst   a  fee  oth  krubbles,  amd,  by 


1  2   1 

opposing,  end  them, 
oppoving,  emd  vem. 


SIMULATED  ENGLISH   TEXT  393 


Dictation  IV. 


In  Dictation  IV  the  general  procedure,  with  art  exception  which  ap- 
plies to  only  three  of  the  reagents,  was  the  same  as  described  above ;  the 
chief  difference  in  the  dictation  is  that  what  was  expected  to  be  familiar 
English  was  simulated  in  the  "garbled"  text,  and  only  half  of  the  con- 
sonantal sounds  were  changed.  Eight  reagents  attempted  transcribing; 
and  eight  critically  examined  the  typed  English  text  while  listening  to  the 
dictaphonic  record  and  challenged  the  sounds  that  did  not  come  true. 

As  was  to  be  expected  much  more  of  the  text  was  transcribed,  and, 
as  will  be  shown  later,  a  relatively  larger  ratio  of  the  substitutions  were 
found  in  the  transcriptions.  But  for  some  of  the  reagents  the  decrease 
in  substitutions  did  not  result  in  more  complete  transcriptions,  since  they 
were  unacquainted  with  Hamlet.  One  such  transcription,  because  it  il- 
lustrates so  well  the  force  of  the  normal  tendency  to  convert  likely  stimuli 
into  language,  even  in  the  face  of  the  adequacy  of  the  stimuli  (many  of 
them  not  substituted )  for  the  perception  of  other  persons,  is  given  in  full 
(line  3)  : 

(1)  To  be  or  not  to  be, that  is  the  question:     Whether   'tis 

(2)  Ku  be  or  mot  ku  be,   vat  iv     vu  tweetion:       Wever       kiz 

(3)  To  be  or  not  to  be, that  is  the  question:  Whether  in  tears 

nobler  in  the  mind  to  suffer  the  slings  and  arrows  of  outrageous 

modler  im     vu  nind  ku  fuffer     va  slings  amd  arrows  of  ouprageous 

or  in  sunshine  that  suffer  such  things  and  arrows  of  outrageous 

fortune, or     to     take  up    arms     against     a     sea  of     troubles,   and, 
fortune, or     ku     kape  up  arns      abenst       a     fee  oth  krubbles     amd 
fortune, or  the     fate  of  harm,    repent  the     sea  of     troubles,   and 

by       opposing,         end  them. 

by       oppoving,         emd     vem. 

while  upholding  repent  them. 

This  reagent  in  his  critical  inspection  of  the  typed  English  text  while 
listening  to  the  record  for  the  third  and  fourth  times,  could  only  hear 
"sunshine"  for  "the  mind,"  "these  things"  for  "the  slings,"  and  "uphold- 
ing" for  "opposing,"  in  conformance  with  his  transcription,  although  the 
few  substitutions  would  not,  as  the  above  text  shows,  support  his  auditory 
impression.    He  heard  consonantal  sounds  that  were  not  there. 

The  respect  in  which  the  procedure  as  observed  by  three  reagents 
differed  from  the  foregoing  was  in  interpolating  a  step  between  the  crit- 
ical inspection  of  the  typed  English  text  for  the  purpose  of  challenging 
each  sound  that  did  not  come  true,  and  the  critical  inspection  of  the  inter- 


394 


SOUND  ASSIMILATION 


linear  English  and  "garbled''  texts :  the  reagent  critically  inspected  a  typed 
copy  of  the  "garbled"  text,  while  listening  to  the  same  dictaphonic  record, 
and  challenged  each  sound  that  did  not  come  true.  The  wax  cylinder  had 
been  ostentatiously  removed,  put  in  a  box,  and  returned,  and  the  student 
usually  did  not  suspect  that  he  was  listening  again  to  the  same  record. 
As  before,  he  took  two  tries,  first  marking  the  unsatisfactory  sounds,  and 
then  identifying  "substitutions." 


(1) 
(2) 


Dictation  V. 

The  aim  of  this  exercise   is  to  show  how  perfect  is 
Vu  ane  oth  vith  etserthith  ith  pu  chow  kow  tersept  ith 


3   2    1       1       111  352 

the  dictaphone  as  an  instrument  of  communication.  The  voice 
vu  zitpasome  ath  am  imspranemp  oth  tonnuniprashum.  Vu  thoith 


2   3   2  13   11  3    1 

sets  the  diaphragm  of  the  transmitter  into  vibration;  the  re- 
theps   vu  ziaspran  oth  vu  kramthnipper  imko  thivrashum;  vu  re- 


13  112  2 

cording  device  of  the  transmitter   converts  the  sound  of  the 
tordeem  bethith  oth  vu  kranthnipper  tomtherps  vu  thoumb  oth  vu 


11  14  1 

voice  into  indentations  on  the  wax  cylinder;  the  needle  of  the 
thoith  impu  imbemkachums  om  vu  yax  thilimber;  vu  meedle  oth  vu 


4  111  2  3  2  1 

reproducer    follows  the  groove  of  indentations,  and  thus  re- 
refrogoother  thollows  vee  drooth  oth  imbempations,  amb  vuth  le- 


11112  5     3  12  11 

produces   the  language  that  was  stored  in  the  wax;  and  the  stu- 
krogootheth  vu  lambwaj   vap  yuth  sporeb  im  vee  yax;  amb  vee  spu- 


2  3  3       3     1 

dent  records  this  language  in  writing.  The 
bemp  leporbs  vith  rambwaj  im   ripim.   Vee 


4   1  1 

accuracy  of  the 
atpurafy  oth  vee 


'2   2  114    1  1  1111 

student's  record  illustrates  the  reliability  of  the  dictaphone 
spubemp's  reporg  illusprapf  vee  leliamiliky  oth  vee  zitpathome 

as  an  instrument  for  storing  and  reproducing  language. 
ath  am  imsprunemp  thor  sporim  amb  lebrobuthim  lambwage. 


i  i 


SIMULATED   ENGLISH    TEXT  395 

The  reagent  whose  transcription  is  presented  on  page  393,  made  the 
challenges  quoted  there  and  three  others,  on  the  English  text ;  but  he 
made  thirteen  challenges  on  the  "garbled"  text,  and  the  "substitutions" 
that  he  identified  conform  to  the  English  text  which  he  had  just  finished 
with.  The  performance  of  the  two  other  reagents  with  the  "garbled" 
text  was  precisely  similar.  The  three  reagents  together  made  33  chal- 
lenges, specifying  the  "substitutions,"  and  31  of  these  "substitutions" 
conform  to  the  English  text.  Those  33  consonantal  sounds  were  heard, 
under  conditions  of  critical  examination,  yet  they  were  not  there ! 

Dictation  V. 

For  the  purpose  of  trying  out  this  last  feature  of  the  experiment 
under  conditions  as  to  text  and  substitutions  uniform  with  Dictations  I 
and  II,  Dictation  V,  which  contains  only  a  few  improvements  in  substitu- 
tions, was  made.  Eight  reagents  attempted  transcribing  and  eight  re- 
agents challenged  sounds  in  both  the  English  and  the  "garbled"  texts. 
The  exhibit,  on  page  394,  shows  in  the  same  way  as  before  the  English 
text  which  the  "garbled"  text  forced  into  the  transcriptions,  and  the 
challenges  on  the  English  text. 

The  underscoring  indicates  that  considerable  of  the  English  text 
was  forced  into  the  transcription  by  the  "garbled"  text,  and  the  digits 
indicate  that  relatively  few  of  the  sounds  in  the  English  text  were  chal- 
lenged when  the  dictaphonic  record  was  inspected  for  this  purpose. 


Numerical  Results. 

We  may  now  put  some  of  the  numerical  calculations  together.  The 
extent  to  which  the  "garbled"  text  forced  the  corresponding  sounds  of 
the  English  text  into  the  transcriptions,  may  be  determined  numerically 
if  we  consider  the  number  of  such  cases  of  substitution  in  relation  to  the 
possible  number.  For  example,  nine  reagents  endeavored  to  transcribe 
Dictation  I,  in  which  there  were  152  substituted  sounds,  making  it  pos- 
sible to  transcribe  1368  substituted  sounds;  502  of  these  sounds  being 
actually  transcribed,  the  per  cent  of  substitutions  forced  into  the  tran- 
scription is  37. 

Table  CII  gives  these  values  for  each  of  the  five  dictations. 

It  is  seen  that  in  Dictations  I,  II,  and  V,  in  which  the  substituted 
sounds  were  close  to  85%  of  all  of  the  consonantal  sounds,  and  the  text 
was  fairly  difficult  with  respect  to  content,  from  a  third  to  a  half  of  the 


396  SOUND  ASSIMILATION 

TABLE  CII. 
English  Sounds  forced  into  the  Transcriptions  by  the  "garbled"  text. 

Dictation    I  II  III  IV  V  I,  II,  V 

i.  Substituted  Sounds    ....  1368  474  164  272  1480  3322 

2.  Transcribed     502  282  32  193  721  1505 

3.  Per   cent    37              59  19  71  49  45 

substitutions  were  replaced  by  their  corresponding  sounds  of  the  English 
text  in  the  transcription.  In  Dictation  IV,  in  which  only  51%  of  the  con- 
sonantal sounds  were  changed,  and  the  text  was  more  familiar,  71%  of 
the  substitutions  were  transcribed  as  their  corresponding  sounds  in  the 
English  text. 

Of  course,  it  was  not  the  substituted  sound  that  exerted  the  force 
toward  its  corresponding  sound  in  the  English  text ;  the  general  sem- 
blance of  the  "garbled"  text  to  the  English  text  furnished  the  force.  But 
the  indefiniteness  or  the  ambiguity  of  the  auditory  impression  of  the  sub- 
stituted sound  permitted  the  transcription.  The  substitutions  in  the 
"garbled"  text  were  not  heard,  were  disregarded,  or  were  heard  as  other 
sounds. 

In  a  similar  way  we  may  determine  what  per  cent  the  number  of 
challenged  sounds  in  the  English  text  is  of  the  number  of  substituted 
sounds. 

Table  CIII  shows  in  line  /  the  product  of  the  number  of  consonantal 
sounds  and  the  number  of  reagents  who  inspected  the  English  text 
for  the  purpose  of  challenging  the  sounds  that  did  not  come  true;  in  line 
2,  the  like  aggregate  number  of  English  sounds  which  were  changed  in 
the  "garbled"  text ;   in  line  5  the  per  cent  of  substituted  sounds ;    in  line 

4.  the  aggregate  number  of  sounds  in  the  English  text  that  were  chal- 
lenged as  not  coming  true  ;  in  line  5,  the  aggregate  number  of  challenged 
sounds  in  the  English  text  that  had  been  changed  in  the  "garbled"  text ; 
and  in  line  6,  the  per  cent  of  substituted  sounds  that  were  challenged. 

In  the  second  line  we  have  the  number  of  critical  judgments  passed 

TABLE  CIII. 
Challenged  Sounds  in  English  Text. 

Dictation    I  II  III  IV 

J.  Consonant  Sounds    1710  915  1197  536 

2.  Substituted   Sounds    ....  1520  790  574  272 

3.  Per  cent  89             86  48  51 

4.  Challenges   of    English..  132             45  39  56 

5.  Challenges    (net)    129              44  29  44 

6.  Per    cent     8.5             5.6  5.1  16.2               9.7               8.4 


V 

I.  II,  V 

1736 

4361 

1480 

3790 

85 

87 

160 

337 

143 

316 

SIMULATED  ENGLISH   TEXT  397 

upon  the  substituted  sounds,  each  judgment  consisting  of  two  observa- 
tions while  the  reagent  held  before  him  the  English  text ;  and  from  the 
last  line  we  learn  what  per  cent  of  these  substituted  sounds  were  chal- 
lenged,— usually  less  than  10%.  What  of  the  other  90%?  There  is  no 
question  of  their  being  disregarded ;  there  is  no  question  of  their  being 
unheard, — they  came  true  to  the  sounds  in  the  English  text;  they  were 
heard  as  other  sounds. 

Some  of  the  students  who  critically  examined  the  English  text  of 
Dictations  I,  II,  III,  and  V,  for  sounds  that  did  not  come  true  expressed 
in  per  cent  their  estimate  of  that  number  (Line  3  in  Table  CIII  gives  the 
real  per  cent):  Dictation  I:  11,  20,  $,  10,  10,  15;  Dictation  II:  12,  7; 
Dictation  III:  6,  8,  3 ;  Dictation  V:  35,  14,  25,  9.  Their  estimates  were 
a  little  high  considering  the  number  of  challenges,  but  they  serve  to  sup- 
port the  statements  italicised  above. 

The  students  who  critically  examined  the  sounds  in  the  English  text 
of  Dictation  V  also  critically  examined  the  "garbled"  text.  In  each  case 
the  wax  cylinder  had  been  removed  from  the  dictaphone,  put  in  its  box, 
and  returned  in  place,  and  the  reagent  did  not  know  that  he  was  hearing 
the  same  record  while  he  was  examining  the  sounds  of  the  "garbled" 
text.  Two  of  the  reagents,  however,  declared  that  all  of  the  consonantal 
sounds  were  wrong, — that  this  record  also  gives  the  English  text.  They 
were  pressed  to  nevertheless  specify  the  sounds  that  do  not  come  true. 
Others  were  able  to  hear  many  of  the  sounds  of  the  "garbled"  text  true. 
But  challenges  of  all  reagents  were  more  frequent ;  altogether  562  as 
against  143  of  the  English  text.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  reagents 
looked  at  the  typed  characters  in  the  "garbled"  text  while  examining 
those  identical  sounds  on  the  dictaphonic  record,  then,  562  or  38%  were 
challenged  as  not  coming  true,  and  95%  of  the  dictaphonic  sounds  cor- 
responding to  the  challenged  text  which  were  identified  were  identified 
as  the  sounds  in  the  English  text.  Half  of  the  challenged  sounds,  which 
zvere  true  to  the  "garbled"  text  before  the  eyes  of  the  reagent,  were  iden- 
tified as  other  definite  sounds. 

Five  of  the  reagents  gave  in  per  cent  their  estimate  of  the  dicta- 
phonic sounds  which  were  not  true  to  the  "garbled"  text :  100,  100,  60, 
33,  25.    They  were  all  true  to  the  "garbled"  text. 

Introspections. 

In  order  that  some  contribution  may  be  made  from  the  subjective 
side  of  these  experiments  with  the  dictaphone,  we  shall  let  some  of  the 
reagents  speak  for  themselves : 


398  SOUND  ASSIMILATION 

(i)  In  the  first  passage  [Dictation  I,  English  text]  I  think  there  are  about 
10%  of  consonants  which  are  not  distinctly  spoken. 

In  the  second  exercise  [Dictation  II,  English  text]  I  think  there  are  about 
12%  of  the  consonants  which  are  not  clearly  pronounced. 

In  the  third  exercise  [Dictation  HI,  English  text]  I  think  there  are  about 
8%  of  the  consonants  which  are  not  clearly  pronounced. 

After  seeing  the  copy  of  what  is  really  dictated  to  the  machine  [the  "garbled" 
texts],  and  then  hearing  the  machine,  it  is  easy  for  me  to  realize  that  the  consonants 
on  the  [dictaphonic]  record  are  changed,  but  at  first  I  imagined  that  the  words 
were  correct,  that  is,  were  as  they  are  used  every  day. 

November  22,  1915.  D.  G. 

(2)  When  the  dictaphone  was  first  presented  to  me  and  I  listened  to  the 
record,  there  was  nothing  but  a  jumble  of  sounds;  but  after  a  few  minutes  I  could 
catch  a  few  intelligible  words.  Then,  upon  the  second  trial,  I  was  able  to  under- 
stand many  more  words,  but  still  there  were  quite  a  few  which  I  could  not  under- 
stand. It  seemed  as  if  the  accent  was  being  placed  on  some  other  part  of  the  word 
than  the  right  place.  .  .  . 

Then  a  paper  [English  text]  was  given  me  showing  the  real  words  and  after 
that  it  [the  dictaphonic  record]  was  easily  understood.  Then  a  third  paper 
["garbled"  text]  was  given  me  showing  wherein  our  difficulty  was.  ...  It  proves 
that  the  hearing  is  not  as  accurate  as  one  believes,  and  speech  has  to  do  with  many 
senses.  Then  again  I  discovered  I  was  not  depending  on  hearing,  but  the  mind, 
and  with  each  sound  I  tried  to  recall  some  word  like  it. 

November  24,  1915.  V.  C. 

(3)  From  this  experiment  I  find  that  my  hearing  is  not  as  acute  as  I  believed 
it.  On  examination  I  found  that  v  sounded  like  th  and  other  equally  absurd  inter- 
changing of  consonants,  but  in  many  cases  I  found  that  I  was  not  depending  on 
my  ear  alone  for  the  record  of  the  dictaphone,  but  more  on  my  mind — what  the 
word  sounded  like,  what  it  should  be.  I  was  surprised  most  to  find  that  such  a 
variety  of  consonants  could  sound  like  one  on  the  dictaphone.  And  yet  with  two 
written  examples  [typed  English  and  "garbled"  texts]  before  me  I  could  make  it 
[the  dictaphonic  record]  sound  like  the  one  or  the  other  as  I  chose.  This  goes  to 
prove,  I  believe,  that  speech  has  to  do  with  other  senses  besides  hearing, — habit, 
experience,  and  the  like,  come  in  to  help  in  distinguishing  a  word. 

November  24,  1915.  D.  H. 

(4)  On  the  paper  [transcript  from  Dictation  IV]  "To  be  or  not  to  be,"  it 
will  be  noticed  at  the  close  that  the  words  I  took  down  are  entirely  different  from 
those  which  appear  on  the  typewritten  sheet  [English  text].  On  going  over  the 
record,  at  the  same  time  following  the  typed  sheet,  the  sounds  came  to  me  exactly 
as  they  are  on  the  sheet.  It  seems  as  though  the  typed  sheet  suggested  and  helped 
me  to  hear  it  as  it  is  on  this  sheet. 

As  for  the  sheet  marked  (2)  ["garbled"  text],  as  I  followed  it  with  my  eyes 
while  listening  to  the  record,  I  tended  to  fall  into  the  way  of  hearing  the  words 
as  they  appear  on  this  sheet;  that  is,  with  a  few  exceptions.  (I  have  marked 
those.)  Without  any  effort  I  could  follow  them  in  this  manner.  But  in  the  case 
of  "iv"  for  "is,"  I  could  not  make  myself  imagine  anything  other  than  "is."  [It 
was  "iv."] 

November  29,  1916.  H.  B. 


SIMULATED  ENGLISH   TEXT  399 

(5)  I  listened  to  the  record  on  the  dictaphone  machine  [Dictation  V]  and 
wrote  down  the  impressions  I  got  from  the  voice.  I  had  considerable  difficulty  in 
recognizing  any  words,  and  only  recorded  a  few. 

I  was  next  given  a  sheet  of  paper  [English  text]  containing  several  sentences, 
and  I  watched  this  wording  carefully  as  I  again  listened  to  the  voice  of  the  record. 
This  time  I  placed  beneath  the  words  any  sounds  I  received  from  the  record  that 
didn't  correspond  to  those  typed  on  the  paper.  Very  few  of  these  were  recorded, 
as  the  voice  seemed  to  speak  just  what  was  on  the  paper. 

I  was  next  given  a  paper  ["garbled"  text]  containing  a  lot  of  meaningless 
syllables  so  constructed  that  they  nearly  corresponded  in  sound  to  the  impressions 
of  the  words  I  seemed  to  get  from  the  machine.  I  watched  these  syllables  as  I 
listened  to  the  machine,  and  recorded  below  them  what  I  heard  that  didn't  corre- 
spond to  the  syllables.  I  again  seemed  to  hear  the  words  that  were  on  the  first 
paper  [English  text]. 

I  was  then  told  that  the  voice  pronounced,  not  the  words  [English  text],  but 
the  meaningless  syllables  ["garbled"  text]  which  were  very  much  like  the  words. 

I  was  then  given  a  paper  with  both  the  words  and  syllables  upon  it,  and  after 
a  little  practice  I  could,  by  covering  up  one  of  the  lines,  hear  the  other  pronounced 
by  the  voice. 

In  this  latter  procedure,  I  took  a  portion  of  both  words  and  syllables  which 
resembled  each  other  in  sound,  which  was  as  follows : 


the 

voice 

into 

indentations 

on 

the 

wax 

cylinder 

vu 

thoith 

impu 

imbemkachums 

om 

vu 

yax 

thilimber 

By  covering  first  one  line  and  then  the  other  I  could  hear  each  part  as  I  followed 
it;  that  is,  all  except  the  last  two  words,  "wax  cylinder";  these  I  could  not  hear 
as  the  meaningless  syllables  below  them,  but  the  words  I  heard  in  each  case,  al- 
though it  was  the  meaningless  syllables  below  that  were  really  recorded  [on  the 
dictaphonic  record], 

December  7,  8,  1916.  R.  R.  S. 

(6)  In  listening  to  spoken  words,  the  effort  of  the  mind  is  to  extract  the 
possible  sense  which  the  sounds  uttered  may  be  supposed  to  hold,  in  all  cases  where 
the  pronunciation  is  indistinct,  incomplete  or  uncertain.  This  was  shown  to  me  in 
the  experiment  of  this  afternoon,  when  I  copied  down  what  I  thought  I  had  heard 
from  the  dictaphone.  The  sounds  of  the  words  were  not  correct,  but  so  far  as 
possible,  I  seem  to  have  striven  to  make  them  into  words  and  intelligible  com- 
binations of  words.  This  was  true  also  when  the  garbled  words  [Dictation  V] 
were  dictated  to  me  by  Professor  Coover,  he  being  separated  from  me  by  a  closed 
door.  When  I  directed  my  attention  upon  the  words  as  I  thought  they  should  be, 
I  felt  much  more  certain  that  they  were  being  thus  correctly  pronounced ;  but  when 
I  concentrated  on  the  garbled  version,  I  began,  with  but  few  exceptions,  to  hear  the 
mangled  words  much  more  clearly  and  unmistakably. 

November  29,  1916.  J.  S. 

(7)  The  first  time  I  listened  to  the  [dictaphonic]  record  [Dictation  V],  it 
was  hard  to  associate  the  sounds  to  words  which  formed  a  complete  sentence.  But 
with  the  second  trial  I  had  more  in  mind  what  words  were  to  be  used,  and  I  heard 
most  of  the  sounds  as  definite  words,  although  they  were  not  clear. 

When  watching  the  first  typed  sheet  with  the  words    [English  text],  it    [the 


400  SOUND  ASSIMILATION 

voice]  seemed  to  me  to  conform  more  to  the  typed  words,  although  there  was  much 
not  clear. 

When  watching  the  second  typed  sheet  with  the  sounds  ["garbled"  text],  I 
felt  that  my  previous  judgment  was  very  poor,  for  the  sounds  seemed  to  conform 
more  to  the  second  sheet. 

I  was  very  much  surprised  to  know  that  the  record  [Dictation  V]  was  dic- 
tated from  the  second  sheet  of  sounds.  I  had  believed  that  it  was  dictated  from 
the  first  sheet  of  English  words.  The  record  seemed  to  sound  more  like  the 
English  words  than  the  other.  I  imagine  this  is  because  I  am  more  accustomed  to 
the  English  words  than  the  other  rather  odd  combination  of  letters. 

December  4,  1916.  F.  M.  C 


CONCLUSION  401 


CONCLUSION. 

When  nonsense-syllables  are  recorded  from  the  dictaphone,  from  the 
telephone,  or  at  a  distance  of  twenty-five  meters,  under  conditions  ade- 
quate for  communication,  the  records  are  found  to  be  only  partially  cor- 
rect ;  if  the  syllables  have  both  an  initial  and  a  final  consonantal  sound, 
the  respective  numbers  of  correct  records  are  less  than  15%,  40%,  and 
40% ;  if  the  syllables  have  only  an  initial  consonantal  sound,  39%, 
58%,  and  73%  ;  if  they  have  only  a  final  consonantal  sound,  34%,  56%, 
and  60%.  And  if  the  per  cent  of  error  on  each  of  these  simple  conson- 
antal sounds  is  considered  in  relation  with  the  relative  frequency  of  each 
in  English  speech,  we  find  that  of  all  the  consonantal  sounds  in  speech 
heard  under  the  three  general  conditions  which  we  have  employed  51.50%, 
33-25%.  and  23.80%,  respectively,  may  be  expected  to  fail  the  ear.  In 
other  words,  under  these  conditions  of  communication  speech  is  readily 
understood,  and  all  of  the  consonantal  sounds  in  its  composition  could  be 
correctly  recorded ;  but  if  these  sounds  are  pronounced  in  haphazard 
order,  only  half  of  them  can  be  identified  from  the  dictaphone,  a  third  of 
them  from  the  telephone,  and  a  quarter  of  them  from  the  air,  by  the  ear 
alone.  To  this  extent  may  the  consonantal  sounds  be  too  indistinct  for 
identification  and  yet  contribute  to  satisfactory  communication;  to  this 
extent,  consequently,  is  the  recipient  of  the  communication  exposed, 
under  favorable  conditions  in  context,  to  error.  Reliance  upon  his  ears 
would  be  precarious. 

Although  in  the  perception  of  English  speech  some  sounds  are  com- 
monly lacking  by  reason  of  elision  in  pronunciation,21  and  other  relatively 
unessential  sounds  are  disregarded,  some  consonantal  sounds  are  also 
falsely  heard,  even  when  critically  examined. 

When  85%  of  the  consonantal  sounds  in  a  more  or  less  unfamiliar 
and  technical  sample  of  English  text  had  been  changed  to  the  sounds 
most  frequently  substituted  for  them,  and  the  "garbled"  text  thus  com- 
posed had  been  put  on  a  dictaphonic  record,  transcriptions  from  that  rec- 
ord produced  50%  of  the  simulated  consonantal  sounds  of  the  English 

21  Especially  obvious  in  the  language  of  the  street:  Godda-macha-bowcha? 
(have  you  got  a  match  about  you?)  ;  c'meer  (come  here)  ;  hoo-zat?  (who  is 
that?)  ;    sry  (that  is  right)  or  saw-ry  (that  is  all  right). 


402  SOUND  ASSIMILATION 

text.  When  the  record  was  heard  twice  again  while  the  reagent  critically 
inspected  the  sounds  in  a  typed  copy  of  the  English  text  for  the  purpose 
of  challenging  any  sound  that  did  not  come  true  to  the  copy,  only  10%  of 
the  changed  consonantal  sounds  were  challenged.  When  the  sounds  in 
a  typed  copy  of  the  "garbled"  text  were  likewise  critically  inspected  while 
listening  to  the  record  (to  which  they  were  true)  yet  twice  again,  38% 
of  the  consonantal  sounds  were  challenged,  and  95%  of  the  challenged 
sounds  which  were  identified,  were  identified  as  the  corresponding  sounds 
of  the  English  text.  Half  of  the  challenged  consonantal  sounds  were 
heard  as  other  sounds.  Finally,  selected  portions  of  the  dictaphonic  rec- 
ord when  heard  while  both  the  English  and  the  "garbled"  texts,  in  inter- 
linear arrangement,  were  before  the  eyes  of  the  reagent  and  were  alter- 
nately critically  examined,  gave  clearly  first  the  one  and  then  the  other; 
that  is,  precisely  the  same  auditory  stimuli  mere  identified  by  the  same 
reagent  now  as  English  text  and  again  as  "garbled"  text. 

From  the  experiments  with  nonsense-syllables  on  the  dictaphonic 
record  we  learned  that  the  mind  (versus  the  ear)  supplied  50%  of  the 
consonantal  sounds  as  distributed  in  English  speech  ;  the  "garbled"  text 
on  the  dictaphonic  record  forced  50%  of  changed  consonantal  sounds  in 
the  English  text  into  the  transcriptions.  In  both  of  these  cases  no  sug- 
gestion beyond  what  the  sounds  on  the  records  themselves  offered  was 
operative.  When  the  typed  English  text,  however,  was  carefully  watched 
while  the  sounds  on  the  record  were  critically  examined,  less  than  10% 
of  the  changed  sounds  in  the  English  text  were  challenged :  90%  came 
true  to  the  English  text, — were  heard  as  other  sounds.  This  shows  the 
force  of  suggestion  from  the  visual  text  when  its  influence  was  toward 
the  false  cognition  of  sounds, — false  cognition  was  increased  about  80%. 
This  force  was  not  overcome  entirely  by  the  suggestion  offered  by  the 
typed  "garbled"  text,  since  38%  of  these  sounds  were  challenged  and 
half  of  the  challenged  sounds  were  definitely  identified  as  other  sounds, — 
almost  uniformly  as  the  sounds  in  the  English  text.  If  50%  of  the 
sounds  are  sufficiently  indefinite  to  fail  the  ear,  the  suggestive  force  of 
the  "garbled"  text  was  12%  ;  and  its  influence  was  toward  right  cog- 
nition. 

-y£t  is  therefore  clear  that  under  the  conditions  of  communication  ob- 
taining in  our  experiments  a  large  part  of  the  perception  of  English 
words  is  contributed  by  the  mind  and  that  suggestion  is  a  very  potent 
determinant  of  the  language  heard.  tThese  facts  are  not  sufficiently  rec- 
ognized in  psychical  research,  although  they  are  of  course  entirely  con- 
sistent with  psychological  knowledge,  v 

~^The  perception  of  a  word  seems  to  the  recipient  a  purely  auditory 


CONCLUSION  403 

affair;  yet  the  fact  is  that  a  more  or  less  slender,  sometimes  a  wholly 
inadequate,  auditory  impression  has  been  assimilated  to  psychical  factors 
(memory  images,  attitudes,  motor  dispositions,  and  other  residuals  of  ex- 
perience) which  are  primarily  responsible  for  the  cognition  of  the  word, 
but  which  cannot  by  introspection  be  segregated  from  the  sensory  com- 
ponent of  the  perception.  (This  assimilating  process  under  the  influence 
of  suggestion  leads  to  false  cognition, — to  illusion.  A  word  is  heard, 
both  auditory  and  psychical  components  of  the  perception  are  referred 
to  the  ear,  critical  examination  of  the  auditory  impression  is  again  made, 
and  the  word  is  verified — yet  the  word  is  wrong!  The  sounds  falsely 
identified  were  assimilated  to  the  wrong  psychical  factors.^* 

The  case  of  auditory  perception  is  not  unique,  for,  as  was  intimated 
in  the  Introduction  to  this  Part,  all  sense-perceptions  involve  the  psy- 
chical component  to  which  the  bare  sensations  are  assimilated,  and  conse- 
quently all  special  senses  are  capable  of  reporting  fact  that  is  not  there. 
A  simple  illustration  from  vision  may  help  the  reader  to  establish  this 
principle  to  his  own  satisfaction.  He,  however,  is  likely  to  miss  the  full 
force  of  the  experience  unless  he  stops  reading  with  the  end  of  this  sen- 
tence and  hands  the  book  over  to  someone  else  to  get  the  instruction  and 
carry  out  the  experiment,  for  the  psychical  component  can  only  be  found 
by  setting  a  trap  for  it.  [Stop  here  and  hand  the  book  over.]  l-(i )  Show 
the  word  in  Fig.  6  to  the  observer  at  a  distance  of  about  six  feet,  (2) 
ask  him  to  look  at  it  carefully,  (3)  close  the  book  after  he  has  had  one 
"good  look,"  and  (4)  ask  him  to  draw  or  trace  with  care  on  paper  one  of 
the  letters  (for  example  I  or  T  or  O)  just  as  he  saw  it.  Now,  he  likely 
suspects  a  trick,  and  he  may  be  able  to  avoid  tracing  in  the  outline  that 
is  not  there,  but  the  chances  are  against  him.  Professor  Jastrow  23  found 
that  out  of  thirty  students  who  were  given  the  same  test  with  similar  let- 
tering only  three  or  four  drew  the  letters  correctly ;  and  our  students 
commonly  see  the  complete  outline  of  the  letter.  Even  after  one  knows 
the  form  of  the  letters  he  can,  if  he  observes  in  a  detached  mood,  and 
views  the  word  at  the  proper  distance  or  through  narrowed  eye-lids,  see 
the  letters  raised  from  their  background  and  lighter  in  color,  the  omitted 
boundary  appearing  distinctly.  Under  proper  conditions  the  sensory  im- 
pression is  assimilated  to  the  psychical  factors  which  preserve  our  ex- 
perience with  outline-letters  and  the  missing  outline  thus  mentally  sup- 
plied is  credited  to  the  eye. 


22  Vide,  Introspection  No.  5,  p.  399,  supra. 

23  lastrow :    Fact  and  Fable  in  Psychology.     New  York,  c  1900,  pp.  281-2. 


404  SOUND  ASSIMILATION 

Professor  Jastrow,  in  a  chapter  on  "The  Mind's  Eye,"  2*  says : 

It  is  a  commonplace  taught  from  nursery  to  university  that  we  see  with  our 
eyes,  hear  with  our  ears,  and  feel  with  our  fingers.  This  is  the  truth,  but  not  the 
whole  truth  Indispensable  as  are  the  sense  organs  in  gaining  an  acquaintance 
with  the  world  in  which  we  live,  yet  they  alone  do  not  determine  how  -extensive 
or  how  accurate  that  acquaintance  shall  be.  There  is  a  mind  behind  the  eye  and  the 
ear  and  the  finger-tips  which  guides  them  in  gathering  information,  and  gives  value 
and  order  to  the  exercise  of  the  senses.  This  is  particularly  true  of  vision, — the 
most  intellectual  of  all  the  senses,  the  one  in  which  mere  acuteness  of  the  sense 
organ  counts  least  and  the  training  in  observation  counts  most. 

And  after  he  has  shown  a  series  of  diagrams  illustrating  visual  il- 
lusions and  reversible  perspective,  he  continues : 

This  collection  of  diagrams  serves  to  illustrate  the  principle  that  when  the 
objective  features  are  ambiguous,  we  see  one  thing  or  another  according  to  the  im- 
pression that  is  in  the  mind's  eye ;  what  the  objective  factors  lack  in  definiteness 
the  subjective  ones  supply,  while  familiarity,  prepossession,  as  well  as  other  circum- 
stances influence  the  result.  These  illustrations  show  conclusively  that  seeing  is 
not  wholly  an  objective  matter  depending  upon  what  there  is  to  be  seen,  but  is  very 
considerably  a  subjective  matter,  depending  upon  the  eye  that  sees.  .  .  .  Not  only 
when  the  sense-impressions  are  ambiguous  or  defective,  but  when  they  are  vague — 
when  the  light  is  dim  or  the  forms  obscure— does  the  mind's  eye  eke  out  the  imper- 
fections of  physical  vision,     (p.  294). 

EiDJT'OH 

Fig.  6.  These  letters,  if  observed  from  a  distance  of  about  six  feet,  or  through 
narrowed  eye-lids,  stand  out  from  their  background,  showing  mental  contribution  of 
the  missing  contour, — a  mental  element  in  the  visual  perception  of  the  letters  which 
seems  wholly  sensory. 

The  following  quotations,  selected  at  random,  will  serve  to  show  that 
the  foregoing  discussion  is  consistent  with  psychological  doctrine : 

Bastian,  a  professor  of  medicine  in  University  College,  London,  who 
was  interested  in  a  psychological  analysis  of  the  speech  function,  said :  " 

Thus  it  happens  that  an  object  is  recognized  immediately  or  intuitively,  not 
so  much  by  the  mere  .  .  .  impression  present,  as  by  the  blending  of  this  with  more 
or  less  fully  revived  memories  of  other  impressions  which  have  at  various  times 
been  associated  with  the  same  object.  .  .  . 

It  is  therefore  bv  the  simultaneous  consciousness  and  fusion,  as  it  were,  of  the 
subjective  side  of  various  new  and  old  impressions  that  a  present  object  is  per- 
ceived and  recognized. 


24  Ibid.,  pp.  275  ff. 

26  H.  Charlton  Bastian :     A  Treatise  on  Aphasia  and  Other  Speech  Defects. 
London,  1898,  p.  27. 


CONCLUSION  405 

In  the  same  place  he  quotes  from  Bain : 

When  we  see,  hear,  touch,  or  move,  what  comes  before  us  is  really  more  con- 
tributed by  the  mind  itself  than  by  the  present  object. 

Hdffding,  professor  at  the  University  of  Copenhagen,  said:26 

In  such  immediate  and  involuntary  recognition  consists  perception.  The  psy- 
chological process  which  here  takes  place  may  be  described  as  the  fusing  of  a 
reproduction  and  an  actual  sensation.  The  percept  is  thus  conceived  as  compounded 
out  of  a  representation  and  a  sensation. 

James,  professor  of  psychology  in  Harvard  University,  said  :27 

Whilst  part  of  what  we  perceive  comes  through  our  senses  from  the  object 
before  us,  another  part  (and  it  may  be  the  larger  part)  always  comes  out  of  our 
own  mind.  .  .  . 

In  the  ordinary  hearing  of  speech  half  the  words  we  seem  to  hear  are  sup- 
plied out  of  our  own  head. 

Wundt,  professor  of  psychology  at  the  University  of  Leipzig,  said:28 

This  type  of  association  [the  connections  of  an  externally  excited  sense- 
perception  with  its  related  memory-images]  we  will  call  assimilation,  and  speak  of 
the  memory  image  as  the  assimilating  element,  the  sensations  following  from  the 
sense-impression  as  the  assimilated.  These  expressions  imply  that  the  memorial 
constituents  are  the  determining  factors  in  the  result,  while  the  incoming  sense- 
impressions  are  determined  by  them.  This  is  so  far  true.  An  impression  may  be 
apprehended  in  the  most  different  ways,  according  to  the  disposition  in  which  the 
mind  has  been  left  by  previous  experiences.  The  resultant  complex  idea  is,  there- 
fore, a  mixed  product  of  the  impressions  given  in  perception  and  of  an  unknown 
number  of  memory-images.  But,  just  because  the  idea  is  a  single  complex,  there 
can  be  no  question  of  analysis  into  these  two  constituents.  Hence  the  reproductive 
elements  are  invariably  referred  to  the  sense-perception,  which  now  contains  con- 
stituents not  to  be  found  in  the  impression  which  aroused  it.  On  the  other  hand, 
real  constituents  of  the  sense-impression  may  be  wanting  in  the  resultant  idea, 
owing  to  their  conflict  with  reproductive  elements  of  greater  intensity.  .  .  . 

Lastly,  in  all  these  processes  of  assimilation,  which  follow  directly  upon  sense- 
impressions,  the  peripherally  excited  sensations  are  so  far  of  influence  upon  the 
memorial  elements  that  they  increase  the  intensity  of  the  reproduced  sensations. 
That  is  the  only  possible  explanation  of  the  fact  that  even  in  the  normal  assimila- 
tion it  is  impossible  to  distinguish  between  the  ideational  elements  aroused  by  ex- 
ternal stimulus  and  those  excited  by  association.  The  impossibility  becomes  still 
clearer  when  the  elements  of  the  latter  kind  obtain  so  exclusive  a  predominance 
that  the  resultant  idea  is  wholly  inadequate  to  the  sense-perception.     Assimilations 


26  Harald  Hoffding :    Outlines  of  Psychology.    London,  1891,  p.  124. 

27  William  James :     The  Principles  of  Psychology,  vol.  II,  New  York,  c  1890, 
pp.  103  and  97,  respectively ;   or  Briefer  Course,  pp.  329,  323. 

28  Wundt :     Lectures  on  Human  and  Animal  Psychology.     London,  1912,  pp. 
287,  289. 


406  SOUND  ASSIMILATION 

of  this  class  we  term  illusions.  In  the  illusion,  we  imagine  that  we  perceive  some- 
thing which  is  not  there;  that  is  to  say,  we  confuse  memorial  elements  with  sense- 
impressions. 

Titchener,  professor  of  psychology  at  Cornell  University,  said  :29 

The  simplest  kind  of  perception,  then, — what  we  may  call  the  pure  percep- 
tion,— implies  the  grouping  of  sensations  under  the  laws  of  attention.  But  it  is 
clear  that  perceptions  are,  as  a  rule,  not  made  up  solely  of  sensations ;  we  see  and 
hear  and  feel  more  than  is  presented  to  eye  and  ear  and  skin ;  the  given  sensations 
are  supplemented  by  images.  Most  of  our  perceptions  are  mixed  perceptions,  com- 
plexes of  sensory  and  imaginal  elements ;  and  the  life  of  perception  is,  far  more 
than  one  is  apt  to  suppose,  a  life  of  imagination. 

Ladd  and  Woodworth,  in  the  enumeration  of  the  essential  features 
of  the  theory  of  visual  perception  which  they  advocate  and  credit  to 
Lotze,  Helmholtz,  and  Wundt,  say  :30 

Fourth :  The  incalculable,  but  enormous  influence  on  sense-experience  which 
lies  back  of  all  the  phenomena  obtained  for  scientific  treatment,  whether  from  the 
physiological,  the  psycho-experimental,  or  the  purely  introspective  point  of  view, 
must  never  be  lost  out  of  account.  Indeed,  these  residua  of  past  experiences,  if  we 
may  so  call  them,  are  doubtless  in  many  cases  the  determining  causes  of  the  char- 
acter of  the  new  experience.  They  consist  of  obscure  and  scarcely  recognized  sen- 
sations, images  of  previous  sensations,  motor  tendencies  and  impressions,  fusions  of 
unanalyzable  elements,  flighty  and  flitting  syntheses  that  have  scarcely  the  quality 
of  even  an  instinctively  formed  judgment ;  and— perhaps,  above  all, — workings  of 
the  organism  which  do  not  result  in  any  effect  that  rises  "above  the  threshold"  of 
consciousness.  But  it  is  just  such  unrecognized,  and  largely  unanalyzable,  factors 
as  these,  which  chiefly  determine,  not  only  our  conduct  under  the  direction  of  sight, 
but  also  our  seemingly  most  logical  conceptions  and  deliberate  judgments  concern- 
ing visual  objects. 

Of  course  these  statements  are  not  mere  opinions ;  they  are  general- 
izations from  a  great  mass  of  experimental  results.  With  respect  to 
perception  of  words  two  researches  may  be  mentioned : 

(  I )  Pillsbury  presented  mutilated  words  on  a  screen  in  a  dark-room 
to  be  read  by  his  reagents,  and  recorded  as  seen.    He  found  that 31 

In  many  cases  it  was  noticed  that  the  letters  which  were  most  certain  and  of 
whose  presence  the  subject  is  most  confident  were  not  on  the  slide,  but  were  added 
subjectively.  Occasionally  no  word  is  seen,  but  only  detached  letters  or  a  nonsense 
syllable,  which  is  made  up  partly  of  the  word  on  the  slide  and  partly  of  letters 
from  the  word  whose  presence  is  due  to  the  disturbing  influence.     These  facts  show 


20  Titchener :    A  Text-Book  of  Psychology.    New  York,  191 1,  p.  364. 

30  Ladd  and  Woodworth :     Elements  of  Physiological  Psychology.     New  York, 

1 91 5,  P-  458. 

31  Walter  Bowers  Pillsbury:     A  study  in  apperception.     American  Journal  of 
Psychology,  1897,  8:362,  267. 


CONCLUSION  407 

that  for  the  individual  the  centrally  excited  sensations  [psychical  factors]  are  just 
as  truly  real  parts  of  the  word  perceived  as  the  peripherally  excited  [sensa- 
tions]. .  .  . 

The  perception,  then,  is  a  very  complex  process,  that  can  be  regarded  as  the 
resultant  of  the  stimulation  of  the  moment  and  of  all  past  experience ;  as  the 
product  of  the  reaction  of  character  upon  the  present  external  forces. 

And  Bagley,  who  presented  mutilated  words  to  the  reagent  by  means 
of  the  dictaphonic  record,  found  that 32 

The  consciousness  concomitant  with  the  apperception  of  auditory  symbols  is 
made  up  of  sensational  and  affective  elements — some  peripherally,  some  centrally 
aroused — in  connections  which  vary  in  character  with  different  individuals  and 
under  different  conditions. 

Our  results  are  therefore  in  accord  with  both  psychological  doctrine 
and  the  results  of  researches  on  the  perception  of  language.  It  is  safe 
to  conclude  that  owing  to  the  dominant  role  played  by  the  psychical  com- 
ponent in  the  perception  of  language,  the  ear  cannot  be  trusted  to  report 
correctly  names  or  phrases,  when  the  latter  are  spoken  under  such  con- 
ditions as  are  deemed  by  the  recipient  satisfactory  for  communication  yet 
which  permit  some  degree  of  indistinctness  such  as  is  usual  when 
"trumpet"  or  "independent"  voices  speak  in  a  seance-room.  This  applies 
also  to  speech  and  song  in  a  hall,  to  foreign  as  well  as  native  tongues,  and 
to  the  method  of  preserving  speech  in  an  unknown  tongue  on  a  dicta- 
phonic  record  for  inspection  in  search  of  foreign  words  and  phrases. 

If  supernormal  capacity  for  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  makes  pos- 
sible the  naming  of  friends  unknown  to  the  "medium,"  or  the  reproduc- 
tion of  knowledge  in  a  discarnate  consciousness,  as  in  "messages,"  which 
are  accepted  as  evidences  of  the  presence  of  a  discarnate  personality,  the 
fact  is  so  important  that  it  should  not  be  allowed  to  rest  upon  question- 
able evidence.  The  service  of  this  Part  should  be  to  make  clear  the  ques- 
tionable nature  of  some  kinds  of  evidence — those  that  do  not  exclude,  but 
rather  invite,  an  auditory  illusion  which  results  from  the  usually  unrec- 
ognized psychological  process  of  the  "assimilation  of  sounds  in  the  per- 
ception of  speech."  This  would  seem  to  be  a  necessary  step  in  the  search 
for  trustworthy  evidence,  and,  consequently  should  be  acceptable  to  all 
who  are  interested  either  in  establishing  the  alleged  fact,  or  in  the  ad- 
vance of  knowledge  in  psychical  research. 

For  the  purpose  of  establishing  a  foreign  tongue  (i)  it  should  be 
expressed  in  legible  symbols  (preferably  typewriting)  which  because  of 
their  permanent  character  may  be  inspected  not  only  repeatedly  but  by 


32  William  Chandler   Bagley :     The  apperception  of  the  spoken   sentence,   a 
study  in  the  psychology  of  language.     Idem,  1900,  12 :  125. 


408  SOUND  ASSIMILATION 

any  competent  linguist;  (2)  it  should  be  recorded  under  circumstances 
which  meet  the  requirements  of  a  scientific  experiment,  thus  excluding 
the  production  of  the  text  by  fraudulent  means;  (3)  a  copy  of  it  dated 
and  signed  by  competent  observers,  should  be  immediately  filed  with  a 
responsible  authority  (preferably  an  accredited  society  for  psychical  re- 
search) ;  and  (4)  the  results  of  all  investigations  should  ultimately  be 
published  in  an  authoritative  journal  or  proceedings. 

For  the  purpose  of  establishing  a  supernormal  capacity  for  the  ac- 
quisition of  knowledge  (whatever  its  nature),  the  experiments  with  play- 
ing-cards s3  and  the  application  of  mathematical  formulae  derived  from 
the  theory  of  probability,  provide  a  method  already  described  as  safe  and 
sure.34 


38  Vide,  pp.  48  ff.,  supra. 

34  Vide,  pp.  313-4,  366,  supra. 


PART  V. 

CONTRIBUTIONS 

BY 

PROFESSOR  LILLIEN  J.  MARTIN 


PART  V. 
CONTRIBUTIONS  BY  PROFESSOR  LILLIEN  J.  MARTIN. 


A  CASE  OF  PSEUDO-PROPHECY.1 
By  Professor  Lillien  J.  Martin. 

At  the  time  of  the  great  earthquake  of  1906  the  accompanying 
poster  of  the  Junior  Farce  PKWTNOPIU  of  the  Class  of  1903,  that  is, 
a  poster  made  three  years  before  the  earthquake,  was  referred  to  as  a 
prophecy  by  some  of  the  newspapers  of  San  Francisco.  As  it  seemed 
to  me  of  some  interest  to  ascertain  whether  this  was  actually  the  case  I 
wrote  to  Mr.  Johnson,  a  consulting  geologist  in  Los  Angeles,  the  maker 
of  the  poster,  in  regard  to  the  matter.  His  letter  which  I  append  shows 
that  the  contents  of  the  poster2  grew  out  of  the  drawing  of  an  infer- 
ence regarding  the  future  from  the  past — is  a  case,  in  short,  of  scientific 
prediction  and  not  of  prophecy. 

Mr.  Johnson  says  in  his  letter  of  August  11,  1913: 

"Mr.  Fletcher  Wagner,  whom  you  may  remember  as  winner  in  the  Carnot 
Debate  several  years  ago,  first  suggested  to  me  the  idea  of  a  class  play  which 
should  be  like  the  famous  breakfast  food,  'something  different.'  At  that  time  I 
was  full  of  the  geologic  phenomena  associated  with  the  earthquake  rift  which 
passes  southeastward  along  the  San  Francisco  peninsula,  back  of  Los  Gatos,  and 
so  toward  the  Pajaro  River.  I  have  seen  the  effects  of  crustal  movement  during 
past  ages  along  this  fault  line  and  have  been  deeply  impressed  with  the  topo- 
graphic changes  which  have  taken  place  in  this  part  of  California  within  com- 
paratively recent  time  (geologically  speaking).  All  of  this  was,  of  course,  as  you 
know,  before  the  earthquake  of  1906,  but  I  realized  that  the  fault  line  had  been 
the  theatre  of  earthquake  activities  on  a  grand  scale  for  a  tremendous  period  of 
time. 

"What  better  than  that  Mr.  Wagner,  with  his  eye  for  the  dramatic,  should 
see  in  this  geologic  fairy  tale  a  chance  for  a  play  that  ought  to  appeal  to  at  least 
Dr.  Branner's  students.  Hence  we  sate  ourselves  down  and  began  this  immortal 
work.     Fletcher  composed   the   music,   words,   songs  and   pretty  much   everything 

1  Reprinted  by  courtesy  of  The  Psychological  Review,  from  vol.  23,  1916, 
pp.  163-4. 

2  See  the  Plate  facing  page  412  which  gives  a  reproduction  of  the  poster  and 
of  a  photograph  of  Memorial  Arch  which  was  taken  just  after  the  earthquake. 

411 


412  CONTRIBUTIONS    BY   DR.  L.  J.  MARTIN 

else,  so  my  creative  outburst  expressed  itself,  so  to  speak,  volcanically.  I  knew 
that  the  earthquake  rift  ran  northwest  and  southeast  and  felt  that  any  high  struc- 
tures near  it  would  probably  be  toppled  over  in  case  of  an  earthquake.  The  high- 
est structure  at  the  University,  except  the  chimney,  was  the  arch,  and  that  seemed 
to  lend  itself  best  to  a  poster.  I  wanted  the  poster  to  be  graphic,  rather  smash- 
ing in  its  effects,  if  you  will,  and  so  pulled  out  one  side  of  it  and  left  the  arch 
overhanging  in  an  impossible  manner,  ( I  hope  the  engineering  profession  will 
have  forgiven  me  this  by  now).  Otherwise  I  tried  to  show  what  I  thought  would 
really  happen  in  case  the  fault  line  had  a  chill.  So  far  as  any  premonitions  were 
concerned  I  know  there  were  none.  I  merely  drew  a  poster  as  best  I  could  on 
the  evidence  of  geologic  facts  gathered  in  the  field. .  As  I  recollect,  the  poster  was 
discussed  considerably  at  the  time  of  the  earthquake  in  some  of  the  San  Fran- 
cisco newspapers  and,  of  course,  the  usual  vivid  imagination  of  our  newspaper 
friends  called  forth  a  long  tale  of  the  astounding  clairvoyance  of  a  Stanford  Stu- 
dent. Bosh  and  Rot.  You  now  have  the  real  inwardness  of  this  remarkable 
event  put  on  paper  for  the  first  time." 


Fig.  a. — Poster  of  the  Memorial  Arch  made  in  1903,  and  a  pho- 
tograph of  it   taken  after  the  earthquake  in   1906. 
{Vide,  p.  411.) 


LOCAL  GHOSTS  AND  THE  PROJECTION   OF  VISUAL  IMAGES  413 


LOCAL  GHOSTS  AND  THE  PROJECTION  OF  VISUAL 

IMAGES.1 

By  Professor  Lillien  J.  Martin. 

Some  tests  recently  made  with  three  Stanford  students  who  re- 
ported that  they  had  seen  apparitions  show  most  clearly  that  whether  we 
will  see  ghosts  at  all  and  what  their  appearance  will  be  depends  upon 
whether  we  normally  project  our  visual  images  into  space  or  are  able 
to  do  so  under  the  influence  of  a  strong  emotional  stimulus.  I  give 
first,  in  the  following,  what  the  students  gave  to  protocol  in  regard  to 
the  apparitions  they  had  seen,  and  then  briefly  summarize  the  results 
of  the  tests  I  have  made  with  them  regarding  their  ability  to  project 
visual  and  other  images. 

I.  Mr.  M.,  a  special  student  in  Chemistry. 

Time  of  appearance  of  the  apparition — the  first  Sunday  afternoon  in  May, 
1908.  Quite  normal  in  health.  I  was  reading  with  much  interest  in  Mendeleeff's 
"Principles  of  Chemistry."  That  I  was  awake  I  am  quite  sure,  as  my  sister  had  just 
passed  through  the  room  and  we  had  spoken.  Quite  suddenly  the  book  seemed 
to  disappear,  and  in  its  place  came  the  appearance  of  a  man,  head  and  shoulders. 
He  wore  a  battered  sombrero  and  soft  dark  shirt,  open  to  the  second  button. 
About  him  was  the  seeming  of  brilliant  sunlight  and  air  of  crystalline  purity,  and 
the  sense  of  high  places  and  much  living  out-of-doors.  Though  I  could  not  see 
it,  I  knew  that  he  carried  a  gun,  probably  a  rifle,  under  his  right  arm,  possibly 
suggested  by  the  set  of  the  shoulder.  The  face  was  attractive  at  first  glance, 
rather  handsome — or  easily  might  have  been.  The  skin  was  clear  and  beautifully 
bronzed.  He  looked  back  at  me  with  a  clear,  open,  frank  gaze,  with  a  half-smile 
on  his  face.  But  about  him  there  was  a  swagger,  a  braggadocio,  an  insistence 
upon  his  own  importance  and  his  will  to  dominate  without  much  consideration 
for  the  other  fellow,  that,  though  it  was  not  consciously  emphasized  on  his  part, 
irritated  me  and  left  me  somewhat  ill  at  ease.  He  remained  quite  two  minutes, 
while  we  stared  at  each  other.  The  smile,  somewhat  superciliously  amused,  grew 
broader,  and  then  slowly  he  faded  away  and  the  book  blurred  back  into  place.  I 
finished  the  sentence  and  the  paragraph. 

Time,  June  2d,  1908,  about  midnight.  I  had  been  out  to  call,  had  particu- 
larly enjoyed  the  evening  and  had  stayed  late.  I  was  sitting  on  the  edge  of  my 
bed  unlacing  my  shoes.     Suddenly  I  sensed  another  personality  present  and  looked 


1  The  first  part  of  this  article  is  reprinted,  by  permission,  from  the  American 
Journal  of  Psychology,  1915,  26:251-7.  For  a  closely  related  contribution,  vide, 
Martin:  Die  Projektionsmethode  und  die  Lokalization  visueller  und  anderer 
Vorstellungsbilder.  Zeit.  f.  Psych.,  Bd.  61  (1912),  p.  321,  and  published  in  book 
form  by  Barth,  Leipzig. 


414  CONTRIBUTIONS  BY  DR.  L.  J.  MARTIN 

up  quickly  in  surprise  and  inquiry  The  same  man  stood  across  the  room  from 
me,  perhaps  ten  feet  away.  The  entire  figure  was  visible.  He  was  dressed  much 
as  before,  but  without  the  hat  or  the  gun.  If  before  his  self-assurance  had  irri- 
tated me,  there  was  now  about  him  a  conscious,  purposeful,  insistent  masterful- 
ness that  I  would  not  and  could  not  endure.  It  aroused  an  instant  and  fiery  an- 
tagonism. My  feeling  was— though  I  did  not  say  it— "You  get  out  of  here,  quick !" 
Yet  I  had  a  decided  impression  that  he  wanted  something  that  I  might  give.  But 
he  did  not  ask,  but  demanded,  in  impossible  ways.  It  seemed,  too,  that  his  man- 
ner was  a  pose,  assumed  as  much  to  impose  upon  himself  as  upon  me.  A  bit  of 
unacknowledged  fear  lurked  somewhere  back  in  his  consciousness.  All  this,  some- 
how, I  knew  He  stared  at  me  a  moment,  with  his  insolently  irritating  smile, 
took  three  steps  to  the  side  and  diagonally  toward  me,  and  suddenly  disappeared. 
The  incident  left  me  so  irritated  that  I  slept  little.  Early  in  the  morning  of  June 
3rd  I  left  for  the  "High  Sierra"  on  a  two  months'  camping  trip. 

About  three  weeks  later,  when  we  reached  the  upper  canyon  of  the  Kern 
River,  I  had  a  very  strong  and  quite  unreasonable,  persistent  desire  to  go  farther 
up  the  canyon,  which  was  not  possible  at  the  time.  This  desire,  after  a  day  or  so, 
associated  itself  with  a  strong  sense  of  the  personality  of  the  man  described  above 
though  I  saw  nothing.  So  compelling  became  the  desire  under  the  stimulus  of 
this  association  that  one  night,  somewhat  after  midnight,  I  walked  almost  with- 
out volition  of  my  own,  perhaps  six  miles  up  the  trail  in  the  moonlight  until  an 
impassable  stream  halted  me.  I  seemed  to  know  that  this  man  was  there  up  the 
canyon,  and  because  he  was  there  was  I  compelled  to  go. 

We  camped,  three  days  after  this  experience,  at  the  edge  of  Monachi  Mead- 
ows. About  midnight  I  was  awakened,  very  suddenly,  by  someone  shaking  me 
roughly  by  the  shoulder.  I  sat  up.  The  same  man  stood  beside  me,  hatless,  but 
with  his  gun.  I  saw  the  glint  of  the  moonlight  on  the  gun  barrel  when  he  moved. 
He  seemed  to  be  in  overwhelming  terror.  The  qualities  in  him  that  had  so  irri- 
tated me  before  were  quite  gone, — the  braggart  was  become  the  craven.  I  knew, 
somehow,  that  he  came  as  a  supplicant.  He  said  nothing,  nor  did  I.  After  star- 
ing at  me  a  moment,  his  head  drooped  in  sudden  hopelessness,  and  he  walked 
away. 

On  the  first  occasion  I  could  not  see  the  book  through  the  man  just  de- 
scribed. The  second  time,  he  was  transparent,  so  that  a  chiffonier  back  of  him 
was  quite  visible.  So,  too,  the  third  time,  I  saw  the  trunk  of  a  tree  through  him. 
That  is,  he  was  opaque  the  first  time,  but  semi-transparent  on  the  two  other  occa- 
sions. 

In  1901,  in  connection  with  a  philosophy  course,  given  by  Dr.  Lovejoy,  I  read 
much  Hindu  philosophy;  and  I  remember  that  Dr.  Lovejoy  talked  in  his  lectures 
of  Egyptian  religious  beliefs,  among  others.  I  was  much  troubled  that  spring  by 
a  series  of  apparitions.  I  do  not  remember  just  when  or  under  what  circum- 
stances these  apparitions  commenced,  nor  how  many  times  they  occurred,  but  they 
occurred  very  frequently.  The  details  of  each  occasion  of  their  appearance,  what 
they  did  and  said,  I  do  not  recall.  One  frequent  astral  visitor  was  a  Hindu,  seem- 
ingly a  pundit  or  yogin ;  another,  less  frequent,  was  an  ancient  Egyptian,  whom 
I  much  disliked.  Upon  the  appearing  of  these  apparitions  I  would  be  first  con- 
scious of  the  eyes,  from  which  point  the  rest  of  the  figures  would  slowly  develop 
downward.  Their  disappearing  was  the  reverse  process,  from  the  feet  to  the  eyes, 
which   would   persist   sometimes   much   longer,   at   times   for   hours.     The   figures 


LOCAL  GHOSTS  AND  THE  PROJECTION   OF  VISUAL  IMAGES  415 

always  were  semi-transparent,  though  very  distinct,  so  that  objects  were  quite 
visible  through  them.  They  frequently  talked  to  me.  The  Hindu,  particularly, 
would  deliver  long  discourses  to  me  which  at  the  time  seemed  the  profoundest  of 
wisdom,  but  which,  upon  later  analysis,  I  always  found  to  be  a  vague  jumble  of 
meaningless  phrases.  At  first  I  permitted  these  apparitions  because  they  amused 
me,  and  I  could  banish  them  at  will.  But  later  they  became  more  persistent  and 
I  could  not  rid  myself  of  them.  Particularly  the  eyes  would  appear  and  follow 
me,  without  the  rest  of  the  figure  becoming  visible,  which  caused  me  much  annoy- 
ance and  distress.  I  remember  quite  distinctly  the  last  occasion  on  which  I  saw 
them.  I  was  alone  in  the  country.  Upon  arising  in  the  morning  about  7:30  I 
went  to  the  piano  to  play.  Suddenly  I  saw  the  eyes  of  the  Hindu  above  the 
piano.  Of  what  happened  thereafter  I  know  nothing.  I  found  myself  at  9 .30  in 
the  evening  exceedingly  weary,  still  sitting  upright  at  the  piano.  I  do  not  know 
whether  this  was  normal  sleep  or  of  a  hypnotic  nature.  I  had  had  some  slight 
experience  with  auto-hypnosis,  having  on  several  occasions  put  myself  to  sleep 
by  looking  at  a  bright  object,  first  resolving  to  awake  in  five  or  ten  minutes.2  I 
was  so  frightened  by  this  experience  at  the  piano  that  I  thereupon  determined 
never  to  see  these  particular  apparitions,  or  their  eyes,  again,  nor  to  go  to  sleep 
without  my  own  volition,  nor  have  I.  I  have,  however,  occasionally  seen  other 
eyes.  For  instance,  a  few  evenings  ago  I  was  reading  in  bed  when  a  single  eye, 
about  four  inches  long,  appeared  back  and  at  the  right  side  of  my  book.  I  glanced 
at  it  and  continued  my  reading.  Presently  the  eye  came  nearer  and  slid  over  the 
edge  of  the  book.  It  was  transparent,  and  the  words  were  quite  visible  through 
it.  It  persisted  about  ten  minutes.  In  general  in  looking  at  persons  I  am  quite 
conscious  of  their  eyes,  as  the  eyes  are  to  me  the  most  noticeable  and  important 
feature  of  the  face ;  just  as  the  head  is  of  greater  importance  than  the  rest  of 
the  figure  to  me.  In  looking  back  at  this  whole  experience  I  see  clearly  that  it  is 
all  to  be  explained  by  the  projection  of  visual  and  other  images,  perhaps  with 
auto-hypnosis  as  a  subordinate  factor. 

As  a  child,  from  my  earliest  recollections  to  the  age  of  about  twelve,  I  had 
a  considerable  number  of  imaginary  playmates  who  seemed  very  real  to  me  and 
of  whom  I  was  very  fond,  so  that  I  cared  little  to  associate  with  other  children. 
To  each  of  them  I  gave  a  name,  and  each  was  a  distinct  and  well  characterized 
personality.  When  they  finally  ceased  one  by  one  to  come  to  see  me  I  often  re- 
gretted their  absence  and  wondered  what  had  become  of  them.  It  was,  therefore, 
a  matter  of  great  surprise,  in  1905,  to  meet  on  the  street  in  Palo  Alto,  a  young 
man  (Dr.  A.  L.  Miinger,  Jr.),  whom  at  once  I  recognized  as  Futoni,  one  of 
those  friends  of  my  childhood.  The  fancy  still  persists  that  the  two  are  identical. 
And  I  have  since  met  two  other  men  who  just  as  surely  are  identical  with  my 
imaginary  friends.  These  experiences  of  my  childhood  made  me  immediately  ac- 
cept as  self-evident  the  theosophical  idea  of  reincarnation  when  it  was  by  chance 
presented  to   me   in  later  years.     That   this  particular  group  of  apparitions   were 


2  We  see  from  this  experience  of  Mr.  M.  that  with  him  as  a  reagent  we 
could  doubtless  easily  have  developed,  artificially,  at  that  time,  a  state  of  "Trance," 
and  thus  have  been  able  to  study  the  origin  and  evolution  of  a  "medium."  It 
would  not  have  been  necessary  at  the  time  of  this  occurrence  to  build  up  the  "con- 
trols" by  means  of  suggestion  for  they  were  already  at  hand  in  the  persons  of  the 
Egyptian  and  Hindu. 


416  CONTRIBUTIONS  BY  DR.  L.  J.  MARTIN 

projected  visual  and  other  images,  I  am  satisfied.  As  to  their  character,  I  am 
still  in  doubt,  for  my  early  environment  does  not  seem  to  me  to  adequately  ac- 
count for  their  content. 

I  add  still  one  more  of  Mr.  M.'s  projected  visual  images : 

After  spending  the  afternoon  of  Wednesday,  March  18,  1914,  in  the  petro- 
graphy laboratory  working  at  the  same  microscope  with  Mr.  H.,  I  called  upon  Mr. 
W.  in  Palo  Alto.  As  Mr.  W.  and  I  were  walking  to  the  street-car  about  six  o'clock, 
I  saw  a  transparent  image  of  Mr.  H.  walking  just  in  front  of  Mr.  W.  on  my  left. 
When  I  left  Mr.  W.  the  image  of  Mr.  H.  followed  me  aboard  the  car,  sat  by  my  side, 
and  went  home  with  me.  I  confess  I  had  a  strong  impulse  formally  to  present 
him  to  my  wife.  The  image  sat  in  a  chair  in  the  living  room  when  we  went  in 
to  dinner.  He  was  in  the  same  chair  after  dinner,  remaining  with  the  family  for 
half  an  hour.  When  I  went  upstairs  to  read  the  image  followed  me  and  re- 
mained until  nine  o'clock,  when  he  walked  out  of  the  room.  * 

Tests  with  Mr.  M.  in  the  laboratory,  show :  ( 1 )  That  his  visual 
images  are  strong  and  that  when  he  casually  thinks  of  an  object  such 
images  are  located  in  the  back  of  his  head,  but  if  he  thinks  of  the  ob- 
ject in  detail  the  image  of  it  is  out  in  front  of  him,  the  distance  away 
depending  upon  the  circumstances  under  which  the  image  is  seen.  (2) 
When  he  projects  visual  images  of  persons  he  has  seen,  they  are  trans- 
lucent. He  does  not  usually  see  through  such  images  but  can  easily 
do  so.  The  transparency  of  his  hunter,  etc.,  images,  was  doubtless  due 
to  the  presence  of  the  bright  light  which  was  so  emphasized  as  to  divide 
the  attention  as,  for  example,  in  the  case  of  seeing  the  "glint"  of 
the  moonlight  on  the  gun.  (3)  When  he  thinks  in  the  laboratory  in 
detail  of  the  hunter,  the  projected  visual  image  which  appears  has  the 
same  general  appearance  as  the  corresponding  apparition  except  that  it 
is  slightly  less  transparent.  The  projected  image  in  the  laboratory  seems 
"hardly  as  real"  as  his  apparition,  however.  He  feels  it  is  an  image 
of  his  apparition,  that  is,  that  it  seems  to  have  the  same  relation  to  it 
as  does  the  projected  image  of  an  object.  The  emotional  experience 
with  its  kinaesthetic  accompaniments  localized  largely  in  the  back  of  his 
neck  and  arms  (he  has  a  very  slight  lesion  in  the  back  of  his  neck 
which  produces,  at  times,  a  feeling  of  numbness  and  a  dull  ache  in  his 
arms),  which  are  elements  of  the  feeling  of  reality,  is  there  but  it 
is  much  decreased  in  strength.  This  hallucinatory  experience  as  well 
as  others  like  it  show  that  it  is  not  alone  necessary  to  be  able  to  project 
one's  visual  images  and  to  do  it  usually  or  very  frequently  in  order  to 
have  a  hallucination.  Mr.  M.  does  on  occasions  when  he  has  no  hallu- 
cinations. Other  persons  who  have  strong  visual  images  and  usually 
project  them  have  never  seen  an  apparition.     The  hallucination  image 


LOCAL  GHOSTS  AND  THE  PROJECTION   OF  VISUAL   IMAGES  417 

must  have  a  content  or  be  accompanied  by  an  emotion  which  separates 
it  out  from  other  projected  visual  images.  (4)  Mr.  M.'s  auditory 
images  are  projected.  When  he  thinks  of  a  sound  he  hears  it  again  and 
it  seems  to  come  from  where  it  originally  came.  (5)  He  can  project 
touch  images  very  imperfectly. 

II.  Miss  T.,  a  student  in  the  German  Department,  graduated  at  Stanford  Uni- 
versity in  December,  1913.  Early  in  December  I  was  told  that  Miss  T.  had  seen 
a  ghost.  I  give  below  a  curtailed  account  of  the  interviews  I  had  with  her  con- 
cerning the  apparition  she  h'.d  seen. 

December  8,  1913,  evening.  My  own  study.  Miss  T.  said : — "I  was  awak- 
ened with  a  start  on  the  night  of  December  5th,  at  2:15  a.m.  When  I  opened  my 
eyes  I  saw  my  ghost,  which  I  had  often  seen  before,  standing  in  my  window.  He 
has  a  high  forehead,  very  hollow  eyes,  which  appear  to  be  only  black  blotches. 
His  eyebrows  are  very  dark;  nose  large;  very  sunken  cheeks,  and  a  very  prom- 
inent chin.  He  wears  a  long  white  flowing  robe.  His  hands  are  thin  and  bony. 
I  lay  in  bed  and  looked  at  him.  He  did  not  move.  He  had  a  long  chain  in  his 
hand.  My  bed  is  next  to  the  window,  so  by  putting  out  my  hand  I  could  have 
touched  him.  Finally  I  sat  up.  When  I  did  so,  he  vanished  out  on  the  porch 
(which  is  off  of  my  room)  and  sat  on  a  couch  out  there.  I  got  up  and  turned 
on  my  light  and  I  could  still  see  him,  just  as  plain  as  when  it  was  dark.  Then 
I  took  my  eyes  off  him  and  looked  in  the  mirror  to  see  if  I  were  awake.  Then 
I  looked  back  and  my  ghost  was  still  sitting  in  the  same  position.  I  crossed  my 
room  and  turned  on  another  light.  He  followed  me,  keeping  about  three  feet  be- 
hind me.  I  looked  for  the  feet  of  the  ghost  but  could  not  see  them,  on  account 
of  the  long  robes.  Then  I  went  out  in  the  hall  into  another  room.  He  followed. 
While  I  was  in  this  room  he  stood  in  the  open  door.  When  I  came  out  he  stepped 
out  of  the  way  and  allowed  me  to  pass.  He  followed  me  until  I  reached  my  door 
and  then  vanished." 

"Were  you  afraid  of  him?"  "No.  He  fascinates  me.  I  never  want  him  to 
leave  " 

"Why  not?"     "I  have  always  felt  he  would  bring  me  good  luck." 

"Why  did  he  come  at  this  time?"  "I  do  not  know.  But  about  five  days  be- 
fore, our  housemother  had  remarked  that  it  was  about  time  for  my  ghost  to  ap- 
pear." 

"Did  he  speak?"     "No." 

"How  do  you  explain  this  ghost?"  "I  have  always  explained  this  as  an 
hallucination,  yet  I  have  a  feeling  that  it  is  a  spirit  and  have  always  felt  this.  I 
feel  that  it  comes  from  another  world,  of  which  we  know  nothing." 

"What  do  you  mean  by  an  hallucination?"  "It  is  a  visual  image  so  firmly 
fixed  in  one's  mind,  that  it  appears  without  any  conscious  effort  on  the  part  of 
the  person." 

"Did  the  ghost  bring  any  message?"     "No." 

"Has  it  ever  brought  a  message?"     "No." 

Room  was  darkened.  "Can  you  see  the  ghost  now?"  "No.  But  I  saw  a 
large  rectangle  of  white." 

Second  trial.     "Even   feeling  that   it  would  be  a  good  omen,   didn't   make   it 


418  CONTRIBUTIONS  BY  DR.  L.  J.  MARTIN 

come."  (She  has  just  written  me  that  she  has  after  many  trials  succeeded  in  get- 
ting a  visual  image  of  the  ghost  but  only  with  closed  eyes.) 

"Give  an  account  of  previous  experiences  with  this  apparition."  "It  first  ap- 
peared when  I  was  about  twelve  years  old.  It  was  my  idea  of  a  ghost,  from 
stories.  It  has  appeared  since  on  the  average  of  twice  a  year.  The  apparition 
always  appears  in  the  window  and  grows  more  distinct  each  time.  The  other 
night  it  was  closer  to  me  than  it  ever  had  been,  except  in  one  instance.  On  this 
occasion,  it  came  and  sat  on  my  bed,  and  was  about  to  speak  to  me,  when  I  called 
my  roommate.  The  room  was  dark.  The  minute  I  spoke  it  vanished.  I  am  sorry 
I  called  because  I  am  sure  it  would  have  spoken  to  me.  This  ghost  is  always 
the  same  in  appearance  but  always  carries  something  different.  I  remember  that 
once  it  had  a  large  red  book,  another  time  an  umbrella,  and  another  time  a  key." 

"Have  you  ever  had  any  other  similar  experiences?"     "No." 

"Did  you  read  ghost  stories  as  a  child?"  "Only  a  few.  My  mother  did  not 
approve  of  my  reading  them." 

"Was  there  anyone  who  encouraged  you  to  read  them?"  "My  aunt  occa- 
sionally told  me  ghost  stories." 

"Is  there  any  one  in  your  family  who  believes  in  ghosts?"     "No." 

"What  is  your  physical  and  mental  condition  in  general  when  the  ghost  ap- 
pears?" "It  comes  at  times  when  I  am  physically  well,  happy,  and  not  mentally 
tired." 

Tests : — Instructed  her  to  recall  in  turn,  Dr.  Jordan,  Miss  McCracken,  etc., 
and  to  see  them  out  in  the  room  before  her.  She  reported  that  she  saw  each 
person  distinctly. 

"Do  they  appear  solid?"    "Yes." 

"Can  you  see  Mrs.  Hurd?"     "No,  I  don't  know  her  very  well." 

"Can  you  put  a  chair  at  the  side  of  this  real  chair?"  "Yes:  It  is  almost  as 
real  as  the  chair  itself." 

Pointing  at  a  reproduction  of  Raphael's  Sibyls,  hanging  on  the  wall,  "Can 
you  place  at  the  side  of  that  picture  another  like  it?"  "  In  general  composition, 
yes,  but  not  in  detail."  Repeated  with  Bocklin's  Selbstportrait.  "I  can  get  Bock- 
lin  and  the  frame  and  mat  clearly.  The  frame,  however,  is  not  as  clear  as  the 
chair  was.'" 

Miss  T.  remarked  during  this  visit  that  she  was  going  to  question  the  ghost 
next  time.  I  suspect  it  will  reply  for  trial  showed  that  she  has  the  ability  to  project 
auditory  images.  Her  images  of  touch  are  also  projectable.  She  says  this  ghost  is 
a  proof  or  confirmation  of  what  all  her  reading  has  more  and  more  convinced  her, 
namely,  that  there  must  be  another  world.  Recently  Miss  T.  has  sent  me  some  notes 
found  in  her  diary  in  regard  to  the  ghost.  February  2,  1901  : — "My  dear  old  ghost 
was  here  last  night.  He  had  a  Latin  Grammar  with  him.  I  hope  he  doesn't  have 
to  struggle  as  I  do  with  the  subjunctive."  July  15,  1901  : — "The  idea  of  carrying 
an  umbrella  in  the  middle  of  summer !  That's  all  the  sense  my  ghost  has.  He 
came  bouncing  in  with  an  umbrella  last  night.  He  closed  it  as  he  entered  through 
my  window.  He  was  so  busy  seeing  if  he  could  find  any  holes  in  my  stockings, 
that  he  forgot  to  take  his  umbrella  with  him  when  he  left.  I  couldn't  find  it  any 
place  in  my  room  this  morning,  though  I  looked  everywhere.  I  guess  he  came  back 
and  got  it  when  I  was  asleep."  January  9,  1902 : — "My  old  ghost  amuses  me  so. 
Last  night  he  did  a  fancy  dance  at  my  window.  Then  he  came  and  rested  in  my 
rocking  chair.     The  nerve  of  him !     As  soon  as  I  spoke  he  vanished." 


LOCAL  GHOSTS  AND  THE  PROJECTION   OF  VISUAL   IMAGES  419 

In  my  office  two  days  after  the  tests  mentioned  above  when  I  repeated  some 
of  them  with  like  results.  Miss  T.  gave  me  her  reasons  for  not  believing  the  ghost 
is  merely  a  projected  visual  image: — I.  The  fact  that  the  ghost  came  when  she  was 
well  made  her  feel  it  was  a  real  ghost  for  she  supposed  projected  images  came 
when  one  was  tired  or  not  well.  2.  The  fact  that  she  was  not  afraid  of  it  also 
made  her  feel  it  was  real.  3.  She  cannot  project  her  ghost  at  will  or  make  it  come 
at  night  when  she  wishes.  4.  She  said,  after  I  had  tested  her  regarding  her  ability 
to  project  her  visual  images,  that  she  had  thought  in  the  past  that  the  ghost  was 
more  real  than  a  projected  visual  image  but  recent  trial  with  projecting  the  image 
of  a  very  intimate  friend  had  convinced  her  that  the  ghost  was  no  more  real  than 
the  image  of  the  friend.  She  added  that  neither  the  ghost  nor  her  friend's  image 
follows  her  eyes  in  turning  her  head.  The  ghost,  she  also  said,  followed  her  when 
she  walked  away  but  her  friend  did  not  and  then  added,  "she  is  very  deliberate." 

It  will  be  seen  from  what  has  been  just  said,  that  Miss  T.  is  ordi- 
narily able  not  alone  to  project  her  visual  but  also  her  auditory  and  tac- 
tile images  and  yet  she  is  not  able  to  project  her  ghost  at  will.  This 
fact  shows  that  the  ability  to  project  one's  images  is  but  one  of  the 
factors  involved  in  the  seeing  of  ghosts.  In  the  case  of  this  ghost  there 
is  not  only  a  favoring  emotional  factor  which  is  connected  with  its  ap- 
pearing but  one  of  an  inhibitory  character  which  interferes  with  its  aris- 
ing except  on  propitious  occasions.  The  favoring  and  inhibiting  emo- 
tional complex  which  has  prevented  a  very  lively  visual  image  of  child- 
hood from  disappearing  is  doubtless  of  a  religious  nature.  The  ghost 
coming,  as  its  seer  believes,  from  another  world,  is  a  source  of  intellec- 
tual comfort.  Through  its  presence  she  has  been  enabled  to  success- 
fully resist  that  skepticism  regarding  the  existence  of  another  world 
which  she  thinks  might  otherwise  have  been  engendered  by  her  Univer- 
sity studies. 

III.  Mr.  ,  a  student  in  the  Department  of  Philosophy. 

Lack  of  space  prevents  me  from  giving  a  detailed  account  of  the  numerous 
apparitions  seen  by  Mr.  .  One  observation  I  wish,  however,  to  draw  atten- 
tion to  as  it  is  another  confirmation  of  my  opinion  that  ghosts  arise  only  where  one 

is  able  to  project  his  images.     Mr.  is  able  without  difficulty  to  project  his 

apparitions  into  space  but  he  tells  me  that  the  images  of  his  apparitions  and  the 
apparitions  themselves  communicate  with  him  largely  through  signs.  He  very  rarely 
hears  them  speak.  Their  preference  for  the  gesture-language  was  readily  under- 
stood when  it  was  found  that  all  of  his  auditory  images  were  very  weak  and  that 
he  is  able  only  with  great  difficulty,  if  at  all,  to  project  them  into  space. 

IV.  Mr.  B.,  a  student  in  the  Department  of  Physiology,  writes : 

My  nervous  system  received  such  a  shock,  at  the  death  of  my  wife  three 
years  ago,  that  I  could  not  sleep  at  night  and  listened  to  every  noise  in  my  neigh- 
borhood.    I  began  soon  to  hear  a  voice  during  the  night,  accusing  me,  that  I  had 


420  CONTRIBUTIONS  BY  DR.  L.  J.  MARTIN 

not  saved  my  dear  wife  from  her  dreadful  disease — progressive  paralysis.  At  first 
I  thought  that  some  mischievous  person  had  put  a  megaphone  on  the  top  of  the 
mountain,  not  far  from  the  house,  and  I  went  early  in  the  morning  in  search  of  it, 
but  the  voice  accompanied  me,  and  I  soon  found  out  that  it  was  my  own  brain 
that  invented  it.  As  soon  as  I  came  to  this  conviction,  I  thought,  if  I  would  change 
the  subject,  I  must  hear  a  corresponding  change  of  this  voice.  I  thought  of  travel 
and  immediately  I  heard :  "He  is  going  to  travel,"  etc.,  repeated  three  or  four 
times.  No  matter  what  I  thought  of,  I  could  hear  it  from  outside.  Now  it  was 
clear  to  me  that  I  heard  my  own  thought.  I  visited  San  Francisco  and  while  there 
consulted  Dr.  Pischel,  who  could  find  absolutely  no  difficulty  in  either  of  my  ears. 
The  change  to  San  Francisco  seemed  to  have  a  beneficial  influence  on  my  halluci- 
nation, and  today  I  hear  only  a  very  slight  ringing  in  my  right  ear,  which  was 
brought  on  15  years  ago  in  consequence  of  a  cold. 

Trial  with  Mr.  B.  shows  that  he  has  auditory  images  but  is  able  to 
project  them  only  imperfectly. 

For  several  years  I  have  given  as  a  class  exercise  the  following 
questionary  sent  out  by  the  English  Society  for  Psychical  Research: — 
■"Have  you  ever,  when  believing  yourself  to  be  completely  awake,  had 
a  vivid  impression  of  seeing  or  being  touched  by  a  living  being  or  in- 
animate object,  or  of  hearing  a  voice;  which  impression,  so  far  as  you 
could  discover,  was  not  due  to  any  external  physical  cause?" 

The  following  is  a  tabulation  of  the  data  thus  collected  regarding 
the  number  and  kind  of  the  hallucinations  which  the  students  have  had : 


Report  of  Stanford  Students. 


Hallucinations 

1912 

Visual   2 

Auditory    37 

Tactile    6 

Visual   and  auditory 

"      tactile 

Auditory    and    tactile 2 

Visual,  auditory  and  tactile 

No.    having    hallucinations 47 

"no  "  S3 

Total   No.  persons  questioned 100 


913 

1014 

1915 

1915 

Total 

12 

6 

4 

9 

33 

37 

23 

25 

33 

I5S 

7 

7 

6 

0 

26 

1 

16 

1 

18 

2 

1 

3 

6 

5 

1 

14 

6 

1 

7 

62 

37 

64 

46 

256 

58 

75 

42 

107 

335 

120 

112 

106 

153 

591 

A  comparison  of  these  reports  with  that  of  the  English  Society  J 
will  show  that  the  proportional  number  of  persons  who  have  had  hallu- 
cinations is  much  larger  in  the  reports  of  the  Stanford  students.  Also, 
the  proportional  number  of  auditory  hallucinations  as  compared  with 
the  visual  do  not  agree  in  the  two  reports.     In  the  English  Report,  and 


3  Proceedings  S.P.R.,  10:25,  and  Parish:    Hallucinations  and  Illusions,  83  ft. 


LOCAL  GHOSTS  AND  THE  PROJECTION   OF  VISUAL   IMAGES  421 

the  same  is  true  in  Vaschide's  4  report,  the  number  of  visual  hallucina- 
tions is  much  greater  than  of  auditory.  In  the  students'  reports  on  the 
contrary,  the  auditory  hallucinations  are  much  more  frequent  than  are 
the  visual.  In  view  of  the  agreement  of  the  students'  reports  in  these 
respects  from  year  to  year,5  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  such  simple 
auditory  hallucinations  as  the  hearing  of  the  ringing  of  the  door  bell  or 
that  of  the  telephone  when  they  had  not  rung,  and  of  the  mother's  voice 
when  she  was  present  but  had  not  spoken  or  when  she  was  many  miles 
away,  were  overlooked  in  answering  the  questionary  the  results  of 
which  were  tabulated  in  the  English  Report,  and  that  auditory  hallucina- 
tions are  probably  much  more  frequent  than  one  would  suppose  from 
this  report. 

Subsequent  questioning  in  connection  with  the  students'  reports 
just  mentioned  shows  that  the  possibility  of  having  visual  hallucinations 
is  not  entirely  dependent  upon  the  ability  of  a  person  to  project  his 
visual  images  in  the  normal  condition.  For  example,  of  the  twenty  stu- 
dents who  reported  having  had  visual  hallucinations  in  the  last  report 
in  the  table,  four  were  unable  to  project  their  visual  images.  The  ab- 
normal mental  condition  accompanying  the  hallucinations,  where  expec- 
tation, fear,  etc.,  doubtless  played  an  important  role,  produced  visual 
image  projection. 


*  Les  Hallucinations  Telepathiques,  56. 

"Compare  Martin:     Die  Projektions  Methode,  128. 


422  CONTRIBUTIONS  BY  DR.  L.  J.  MARTIN 


AN  EXPERIMENTAL  STUDY  OF  THE  SUBCONSCIOUS.1 
By  Professor  Lillien  J.  Martin. 

The  subconscious  is  so  often  referred  to  in  works  on  psychical  re- 
search that  it  seems  to  me  a  condensed  summary  of  a  recent  investiga- 
tion I  have  made  may  not  be  out  of  place  in  this  report. 

In  making  this  study  the  image  method  was  employed.  That  is,  to 
state  very  briefly  the  mode  of  procedure,  in  one  half  of  the  experiments 
the  observer,  usually  with  his  eyes  closed  or  blindfolded  and  seated  op- 
posite the  experimenter,  was  instructed  to  sit  in  a  relaxed  position  and 
let  an  image  (visual  or  auditory,  memory  or  imaginative,  etc.,  depend- 
ing upon  what  was  desired  by  the  experimenter),  arise  of  itself.  The 
observer  was  not  only  not  to  arouse  the  image  but  he  was  not  even  to 
know  its  content  until  he  saw  it  before  him  and  only  those  images  were 
noted  where  the  instructions  had  been  entirely  complied  with.  In  the 
other  half  of  the  experiments  the  observer  was  directed  to  arouse  the 
image,  that  is,  he  was  instructed  to  decide  on  the  particular  thing  he 
wished  to  visualize  and  to  arouse  the  corresponding  image. 

Stanford  and  Munich  University  students  acted  as  observers. 

An  examination  of  the  data  regarding  the  content  of  the  images* 
their  mode  of  arising,  etc.,  shows : 

tC'The  subconscious  mental  activity  reveals  itself  through  the  aris- 
ing of  images  where  the  observer  did  not  previously  know  whether,  any- 
thing would  be  imaged  or  if  so  what  it  would  bei/Also,  in  the  arising 
of  unwilled  (spontaneous)  images  in  connection  with  those  willed. 

2.  Evidently,  sometimes  and  in  some  persons,  the  subconscious 
thinking  responds  more  quickly  to  the  task  set  than  does  the  conscious. 
This  is  shown  by  the  spontaneous  images  arising  more  promptly  than 
do  the  willed.  That  is,  the  spontaneous  image  is  before  the  observer 
before  he  has  decided  what  image  to  arouse  or  arises  in  place  of  it. 

3.  The  images  show  that  not  only  the  conscious  but  the  subcon- 


1  For  fuller  details  of  the  investigation  as  to  the  theory  underlying  it,  the 
methods  used,  the  experimental  data,  etc.,  see  Martin :  Ein  experimentelles  Beitrag 
zur  Erforschung  des  Unterbewussten  (Barth)  ;  and  Uber  die  Abhangigkeit  visueller 
Vorstellungsbilder  vom  Denken,  veit  fur  Psych.,  70:212.  A  partial  summary  of 
the  present  report  was  published  in  the  Psychological  Review,  1915,  22:251-8. 


AN  EXPERIMENTAL  STUDY  OF  THE  SUBCONSCIOUS  423 

scious  mental  activity  differs  in  richness  of  content  in  different  in- 
dividuals. 

4.  In  case  of  all  the  observers — but  in  some  of  them  more  than  in 
others — some  of  the  material  stored  away  under  the  threshold  has  evi- 
dently remained  as  originally  grouped,  as  for  example  when  the  visual 
image  of  a  particular  man  in  a  particular  environment  arises  simultan- 
eously and  at  once.  On  the  other  hand  some  of  the  material  has  evi- 
dently been  more  or  less  broken  up,  as  for  example  where  an  eye  arises 
spontaneously  when  an  imagination  image  of  a  face  is  asked  and  no 
other  features  followed  it  until  aroused  by  a  special  act  of  will  on  the 
part  of  the  observer.  In  case  of  some  of  the  observers  the  broken  up 
memory  material,  the  memory  elements,  have  been  unconsciously  (shown 
by  the  observer's  great  surprise  at  the  content  of  the  visual  images 
which  arise)  recombined  under  the  threshold  into  complicated  and  ap- 
propriate new  groups.  There  has  been  not  alone  a  breaking  up  of  mem- 
ory material  but,  to  use  Ribot's  words,  an  "unconscious  elaboration" 
of  it.  In  the  observers  with  whom  I  have  experimented  the  memory 
activity  evidently  predominates  below  as  well  as  above  the  threshold  of 
consciousness. 

5  The  memory  and  imagination  material  under  the  threshold  is 
evidently  not  all  on  the  same  stratum  or  level  of  consciousness  for  some 
of  it  arises  much  more  spontaneously  and  quickly  and  has  a  different 
content.     Here  too  individuality  plays  a  great  role. 

6.  From  what  has  been  said  it  will  be  seen  that  the  visual  image 
method  makes  it  possible  to  obtain  information  regarding  the  past  life 
of  the  individual,  the  general  character  and  the  personal  peculiarities 
of  the  thinking  going  on  in  his  mind,  not  alone  above  but  also  below 
the  threshold  of  consciousness.  The  applicability  of  this  method  in  the 
case  of  a  particular  person  will  of  course  depend  upon  his  ability  and 
habit  as  regards  the  imaging  of  his  conscious  and  subconscious  thinking. 

7.  The  introspections  show  that  the  spontaneous  images  are  some- 
times the  point  of  departure  of  the  willed  images,  that  is  the  involuntary 
image  that  arises  before  the  observer  has  decided  what  to  will  acts  in 
the  way  of  suggestion.  This  shows  how  important  the  spontaneous 
images  must  be  in  our  daily  life.  Where  the  spontaneous  images  are  in 
the  direction  of  the  work  in  hand,  they  must  save  time  in  that  they  arise 
immediately  and  furnish  material  already  elaborated.  On  the  other  hand 
if  they  are  not  of  such  a  character  that  they  can  be  used  directly  in  the 
intellectual  work  being  carried  on  or  as  points  of  departure  for  conscious 
thinking  along  the  desired  line,  they  must  be  an  interruption  and  even  a 
hindrance  in  the  continuing  of  such  thinking.    The  results  show  that  the 


424  CONTRIBUTIONS  BY  DR.  L.  J.  MARTIN 

spontaneous  images  may  furnish  ideals  as  regards  action.  In  this  re- 
spect they  may  or  may  not  be  entirely  helpful.  One  of  the  observers 
who  took  part  in  these  experiments  has  very  strong  and  insistent  spon- 
taneous auditory  images.  So  insistent  are  they  that  she  tells  me  that 
they  led  to  her  giving  up  the  study  of  music  to  which  she  had  devoted 
several  years,  and  turning  to  a  totally  different  field  of  work.  She  says 
that  whenever  she  plays  on  the  piano  the  spontaneous  auditory  images 
precede  what  she  is  playing  and  show  her  how  imperfect  is  her  exe- 
cution. 

8.  A  comparison  of  the  content  of  the  voluntary  images  with  that 
of  the  ones  which  are  spontaneous  shows  that  in  the  case  of  the  visual 
images  of  a  given  observer  what  is  above  and  below  the  threshold  of 
consciousness  is  not  materially  different. 

This  result  does  not  support  Binet's  2  theory  regarding  the  nature 
of  the  subconscious,  which  is  that  there  are  two  personalities  running 
side  by  side,  one  above  and  the  other  below  the  threshold  of  conscious- 
ness, as  what  is  above  and  below  the  threshold  of  consciousness,  as  was 
said,  seems  in  the  case  of  these  observers  not  to  be  materially  different. 
It  may  be  otherwise  in  pathological  persons  of  course.  Cases  of  double 
personality  certainly  suggest  this.  But  such  special  cases  do  not  give 
Binet's  theory  any  great  universality.  Nor  does  Myers' 3  theory,  which 
has  found  support  among  workers  in  psychical  research,  that  the  sub- 
conscious is  an  expression  of  the  infinite  mind  and  the  conscious  an  in- 
dividual matter  or  a  very  limited  expression  of  the  infinite,  get  support, 
for  as  was  just  said  what  is  under  the  threshold  does  not  seem  enor- 
mously richer  in  content  than  what  is  above.  Nor  do  I  find  anything 
in  these  results  which  leads  me  to  suppose  that  under  the  threshold  a 
mental  condition  exists  which  makes  it  necessary  to  suppose  that  com- 
munication between  different  persons  (telepathy)  is  possible  and  which 
would  more  or  less  be  supporting  Myers'  theory.  The  results  do  sup- 
port Prince's  4  theory  that  what  is  under  the  threshold  is  an  expression 
of  the  observer's  previous  experiences. 

9.  The  results  have  a  farther  interest  from  the  standpoint  of  gen- 
eral psychology. 

A.  They  show,  that  the  difference  and  likeness  between  spontaneous 
and  voluntary  images  ought  not  to  be  overlooked  in  psychology,  as  has 
been  the  case  in  the  past,  since  through  the  study  and  comparison  of 
such  images  we  may  go  below  the  threshold  of  consciousness  and  get 
some  information  regarding  what  is  going  on  there. 


2  On  double  consciousness,  etc.        3  Human  Personality,  1904,  I,  34  ff. 
4  The  Subconscious,  1914,  1  ff. 


AN  EXPERIMENTAL  STUDY  OF  THE  SUBCONSCIOUS  425 

B.  They  throw  light  on  what  is  called  inattention  and  vacillation 
of  attention.  We  see  that  sometimes  at  least  this  grows  out  of  the  fact 
that  the  person  has  a  flood  of  spontaneous  images  and  ideas,  that  im- 
pede and  even  crowd  out  voluntary  images  and  ideas.  They  explain 
why  the  genius  is  so  impatient  of  restraint  and  may  sometimes  actually 
get  on  faster  by  letting  himself  go  and  also  why  the  student  in  a  field 
of  a  more. exacting  and  foreign  character  as  regards  his  natural  think- 
ing must  take  himself  in  hand  or  fail  altogether  in  his  work.  I  take 
the  following  in  the  way  of  illustration  from  what  one  of  the  observers 
gave  to  protocol. 

Als  ich  mein  Studium  begann,  war  es  mir  kaum  moglich,  mich  in  einer  Vor- 
lesung  irgendwie  zu  konzentriertn,  weil  ich  bestandig  durch  spontan  auftretende 
V.  gestort  wurde.  Ich  habe  dann  versucht,  die  spqntanen  V.  zu  verdrangen  und 
grosse  Miihe  darauf  verwendet  und  habe  es  darin  bis  zu  einer  gewissen  Fertig- 
keit  gebracht,  so  dass  ich  jetzt  spontane  V.  willkiirlich  haben  oder  nicht  haben 
kann.  Sobald  ich  mich  aber  etwas  gehen  lasse,  sind  die  spont.  V.  da  und  ich  bin 
ziemlich  machtlos  dagegen. 

C.  The  dates  obtained  lead  one  to  ask  whether  in  future  memory 
investigations  along  quantitative  lines  the  task  of  the  investigation  will 
not  be  something  more  than  a  filling  in  of  the  gap  left  in  the  work  of 
an  Ebbinghaus  and  a  Muller,  something  more  than  a  building  upon  the 
results  already  obtained  by  them.  May  we  not  possibly  be  obliged  to 
begin  again  at  the  very  bottom  and  repeat  the  work  in  order  to  feel  sure 
of  its  foundations  ?  It  would  seem  from  these  results  that  instructions 
given  by  an  experimenter  favorable  to  voluntary  effort,  or  the  belief  on 
the  part  of  the  observer  that  he  must  put  forth  his  will  in  connection 
with  the  task  set,  while  favorable  to  voluntary  memory  may  have  been 
detrimental  to  spontaneous  and  vice  versa.  In  short,  it  does  not  seem 
entirely  impossible  that  two  persons  may  have  equally  good  memories  as 
regards  the  amount  that  can  be  reproduced  but  that  like  instructions,  as 
for  example,  that  effort  (resp.  no  effort)  is  to  be  used  in  repro- 
ducing a  given  material  may  make  it  appear  that  one  person  has  a 
much  better  memory  than  the  other  or  indeed  that  neither  has  a  good 
memory. 

D.  Again,  these  results  put  in  question  the  results  of  certain  experi- 
ments of  Rux,5  which  were  inspired  by  Ach.  Rux  has  attempted  to 
measure  the  strength  of  will  by  using  the  quantitative  data  derived  from 
memory  experiments  without  apparently  making  any  attempt  to  show 
how  much  of  the  work  done  was  accomplished  by  voluntary  and  how 
much  by  spontaneous  memory. 


B  "Ueber  das  assoziative  Aequivalent  der   Determination,"   Untersuchungen   zur 
Psychologie  und  Philosophic,  Bd.  II. 


426  CONTRIBUTIONS  BY  DR.  L.  J.  MARTIN 

10.  The  results  have  a  pedagogical  interest. 

A.  In  that  they  show  that  it  is  possible  to  educate  and  enrich  the 
subconscious. 

B.  In  that  they  lead  one  to  ask  whether  we  may  not  sometimes  be 
placing  too  much  emphasis  on  the  employment  of  will  in  connection 
with  the  intellectual  work  to  be  done.  When  the  student's  work  is  of  a 
creative  nature  or  along  the  line  of  discovery  and  his  spontaneous  think- 
ing and  images  are  in  harmony  with  the  field  in  which  he  is  working, 
one  can  think  that  the  director  of  a  leading  institution  in  America  which 
is  devoted  to  scientific  research  showed  psychological  acumen  when  he 
urged  the  investigators  working  under  him  to  take  each  day  some  time 
away  from  their  work  not  only  to  give  their  minds  rest  but  to  free  them- 
selves from  the  restraint  of  thinking  in  one  particular  narrow  line. 

The  Image  Method  versus  the  Automatic  Writing  and  Speaking  Methods 
of  Penetrating  below  the  Threshold  of  Consciousness. 

Binet  and  others  have  used  the  automatic  writing  method  in  in- 
vestigating the  subconscious.  As  the  image  method  will  naturally  come 
in  competition  with  the  automatic  writing  method  in  investigations 
along  this  line,  I  have  thought  it  desirable  to  make  some  experiments 
by  this  method  to  ascertain  how  it  compares  as  regards  the  amount  of 
data  yielded  with  the  visual  image  method  in  the  getting  of  information 
of  what  is  going  on  under  the  threshold  of  consciousness. 

I  cannot  refrain  before  describing  these  tests  from  mentioning  an 
interesting  case  of  automatic  writing  that  came  under  the  observation 
of  one  of  the  English  Department  critics  at  Stanford  University.  The 
critic  told  me  she  found  written  repeatedly  on  the  margin  and  in  the 
body  of  a  theme  handed  in  to  her  by  one  of  the  women  students,  the 
name  of  a  football  hero.  When  shown  what  she  had  written,  the  young 
woman  displayed  great  embarrassment,  acknowledging,  however,  that 
she  was  deeply  interested  in  the  young  man  and  often  thought  about 
him. 

Preliminary  orientating  experiments,  the  results  of  which  are  given 
in  the  note  below,6  were  made  with  Jastrow's  automatograph  upon   17 

8  Instructions.  Shut  your  eyes  during  experiments  1-2  below.  Open  your 
eyes  and  look  at  the  experimenter  during  experiments  4-6. 

Method.  Ten  seconds  were  allowed  to  elapse  after  the  ready  signal  in  order 
to  have  a  line  for  comparison.  At  the  end  of  10  seconds  the  experimenter  gave 
the  direction  for  experiment  1.  "Hold  your  hands  still  and  think  of  nothing  in 
particular."  When  10  seconds  more  had  passed  the  pencil  was  raised  from  the 
recording  paper,  that  is,  the  complete  experiment  lasted  20  seconds. 


AN  EXPERIMENTAL  STUDY  OF  THE  SUBCONSCIOUS  427 

students  to  ascertain  the  probability  of  any  of  them  being  able  to  write 
automatically.  Involuntary  movements  of  a  directive  character  showed 
themselves  very  clearly  in  case  of  three  of  the  observers.  In  case  of 
the  other  observers,  while  there  were  isolated  cases  of  directive  move- 
ments, the  involuntary  movements  as  a  whole  had  a  complicated  and 

Experiment  2.     Hold  your  hands  still  and  think  of  Roble  Hall. 

Experiment  3.     Hold  your  hands  still  and  think  of  Encina  Hall. 

Experiment  4.  Hold  your  hands  still  and  watch  the  experimenter.  In  first 
case,  a  circle  was  drawn  in  the  air  by  the  experimenter.  5.  In  the  second  case  a 
movement  was  made  in  the  air  from  right  to  left.  6.  In  the  third,  from  left  to 
right. 

To  avoid  any  movements  growing  out  of  a  knowledge  of  what  was  to  be  ex- 
pected, the  above  experiments  were  purposely  made  but  once  with  each  of  the 
observers.  Nothing  suggesting  automatic  writing  was  found  among  the  tracings. 
Involuntary  movements  of  directions  were  discernible  in  the  records  of  all  the 
observers  but  they  were  present  in  every  case  in  the  records  of  but  one  of  them. 
Some  of  the  records,  apparently  having  no  significance,  were  understandable  in 
the  light  of  what  the  introspections  showed  the  observer  to  have  been  thinking  of. 
Others  having  a  more  complicated  character  were  not  understandable.  The  re- 
sults of  the  introspections,  the  observations  of  the  observer  and  the  tracings 
which  I  summarize  below  show  the  large  number  of  factors  entering  into  such 
an  experiment. 

(1)  The  length  of  time  given  for  the  writing  was  probably  too  short  for 
the  observer  to  get  to  thinking  strongly.  (2)  There  was  a  decided  preference, 
by  the  observer,  for  movements  in  a  particular  direction.  (3)  There  was  a  sway- 
ing of  the  body,  as  a  whole,  which  unsteadiness  was  increased  by  closing  the 
eyes  in  the  case  of  one  of  the  observers.  Breathing  and  other  movements  may 
be  of  a  character  to  inhibit  or  compensate  the  arm  movement.  (4)  Observation 
showed  the  movements  of  direction  were  sometimes  of  the  eye  and  head  and  not 
of  the  arm.  (5)  Where  the  observer  had  not  orientated  himself  in  the  particular 
room  as  to  location  of  the  two  buildings  mentioned  appropriate  movements  of  di- 
rection were  not  generally  present.  (6)  Encina  Hall  was  at  the  observer's  right 
but  on  hearing  the  instruction,  some  of  the  observers  had  a  V-image  of  it  as  if 
located  directly  in  front  of  them,  and  in  others  the  observer  felt  himself  in  the 
reception  hall  of  this  building  dancing  a  waltz,  as  he  had  often  done.  (7)  Af- 
fective elements  enter  in  as,  for  example,  the  observer  felt  himself  being  drawn 
towards  a  building  or  repelled  from  it  because  he  liked  or  disliked  it.  (8)  Tell- 
ing the  observer  not  to  move  his  hands  not  only  directs  attention  to  his  hands 
and  disturbs  their  normal  movement  but  evidently  had  an  inhibiting  effect  and 
doubtless,  in  some  cases,  resulted  in  movements  in  the  opposite  direction.  (9) 
There  may  be  simultaneous  lines  of  thought  each  of  which  gives  rise  to  writing, 
one  producing  involuntary  writing  and  the  other  automatic.  This  may  result  in 
a  writing  very  difficult  to  decipher. 

On  examining  the  tracings  in  the  light  of  the  introspections  one  is  again 
impressed  with  the  futility  of  depending  entirely  on  the  results  of  "objective  psy- 
chology." As  a  control  it  is  of  course  of  value  but  it  is  evident  again  from  these 
results  that  one  can  not  get  very  far  in  the  study  of  the  mind  with  it  alone. 


428  CONTRIBUTIONS  BY  DR.  L.  J.  MARTIN 

confused  character.  Nothing  of  an  automatic  writing  nature  showed 
itself. 

Subsequently  experiments  were  made  with  five  of  the  observers 
above  mentioned  and  with  two  other  persons,  which  looked  directly  to 
the  getting  of  data  on  automatic  writing. 

Method.  A  soft  pencil  was  put  in  the  observer's  right  hand  which 
rested  on  a  sheet  of  paper  and  was  screened  off  so  the  observer  could 
not  see  it.  An  open  book  (Emmy  Lou,  by  G.  M.  Martin),  was  laid 
on  the  table  at  the  observer's  left  and  he  was  told,  after  hearing  the  in- 
structions as  to  what  he  was  to  write  automatically,  not  to  think  about 
what  had  been  said  or  of  his  right  hand  but  to  give  his  entire  thought  to 
the  reading  of  the  story.  The  time  allowed  for  each  test  was  five  min- 
utes. In  order  to  get  material  of  sufficient  amount  to  be  compared  with 
the  published  reports  on  automatic  writing,  it  was  necessary  to  give  this 
long  period.  In  M's  case  there  was  usually  a  period  of  one  or  two  min- 
utes before  the  writing  began.  Having  been  begun  it  was  continued 
until  the  end  of  the  period.  The  slowness  of  the  writing  may  be  ex- 
plained by  supposing  consciousness  took  some  part  in  it.  It  is  explain- 
able, however,  in  another  way,  namely,  by  supposing  the  writing  was 
under  the  control  of  another  set  ofjerves  (a  lower  set)  than  in  ordinary 
writing.  This  last  supposition  would  perhaps  throw  light  on  the  pre- 
liminary twitching  of  the  hand  observed  in  the  early  stages  of  the  writ- 
ing and  the  feeling  of  numbness  and  "asleepness"  of  which  the  ob- 
server spoke  and  of  which  he  tried  to  get  rid  at  the  end  of  an  experi- 
ment by  rubbing  his  arm.  If  this  be  true,  the  twitching  was  an  indica- 
tion of  the  transition  of  the  control  of  the  hand  from  the  control  of  the 
higher  to  the  lower  nerve  centers  that  ordinarily  controlled  the  writing, 
and  the  "numbness"  to  the  fact  that  the  lower  centers,  as  regards  the 
writing,  had  assumed  control. 

In  case  of  two  of  the  observers  there  were  again  involuntary  move- 
ments but  no  trace  of  automatic  writing.  I  give  below  the  writing  and 
the  corresponding  introspection  of  one  of  the  three  remaining  observers, 
when  the  instruction  to  read  was  given.  It  will  be  seen,  the  writing  is 
largely  an  involuntary  movement  and  shows  that  involuntary  movement 
does,  without  doubt,  sometimes  play  a  part  in  automatic  writing: 

("Davis  on  lawn")  Knew  my  hand  was  moving,  but  did  not  know  I  was  writ- 
ing words.  Remembered  my  first  teacher,  America  Davis,  and  had  a  visual  image 
of  her  in  the   school-room.     No   KV  or  AV  images.     Recalled  consciously   indis- 


AN  EXPERIMENTAL  STUDY  OF  THE  SUBCONSCIOUS  429 

tinctly  the  time  I  was  first  scolded  by  a  teacher  for  walking  on  forbidden  lawn, 
and  how  another  teacher  Miss  Davis  comforted  me  by  putting  her  arms  around 
me  because  I  had  not  done  the  forbidden  thing  knowing  it  was  wrong. 

In  case  of  the  two  other  observers,  there  were  also  a  few  incom- 
plete words  written.  For  example,  when  the  instruction  was  "Write  the 
name  of  some  person  whose  name  you  are  unable  to  recall,"  one  wrote : 
and  gave  to  protocol: 


I  had  to  try,  consciously,  all  the  time,  to  keep  all  my  attention  on  the  book, 
for  I  knew  that  something  was  to  take  place  without  my  consciousness,  and  cu- 
riosity bothered  me  a  little.  In  one  paragraph  the  reading  was  less  interesting 
than  usual— my  attention  wandered— and  I  heard  the  name  I  had  evidently  been 
trying  to  recall.  But  I  have  the  feeling  that  no  subconscious  phenomenon  pro- 
duced the  name— I  had  only  succeeded  in  drawing  a  curtain  between  two  parts  of 
my  consciousness,  so  that  they  should  each  be  ignorant  of  what  the  other  was 
doing. 

Here  the  introspection  shows  that  what  was  written  was'  far  too  near 
the  threshold  of  consciousness  to  be  called  a  case  of  automatic  writing. 
There  has  been,  through  the  use  of  the  distractor,  merely  a  dividing  of 
consciousness— focal  had  been  separated  from  marginal  experiences. 

I  believe  that  in  cases  about  to  be  given  the  two  remaining  ob- 
servers, M  and  O,  wrote  automatically.  My  use  of  the  word  "believe" 
needs  to  be  explained  perhaps.  Of  the  personal  integrity  of  M  and  O 
I  am  absolutely  certain  from  my  personal  knowledge  of  them  and  from 
the  report  of  people  who  have  known  them  well  for  a  long  time.  They 
have,  however,  had  little  psychological  training,  their  laboratory  experi- 
ence being  largely  confined  to  these  and  the  previous  experiments.  It  is 
almost  superfluous  to  remark  that  introspection  extending  over  a  period 
of  five  minutes  makes  very  serious  demands  upon  an  observer,  even  of 
long  training.  I  should  perhaps  state  that  I  look  upon  what  I  report 
here  as  truly  as  automatic  in  character  as  that  reported  by  any  other  of 
the  investigators  in  this  field,  Binet,  Janet,  Prince,  etc.  Indeed,  I  may 
say,  I  am  inclined  to  put  more  confidence  in  these  results  than  in  theirs 
for  the  following  reasons :  ( I )  The  observers  have  had,  doubtless, 
more  training  in  introspection.  (2)  Their  characters  are  probably  more 
unified  and  stable.  (3)  They  have  both  had  a  university  training  in 
science;  both  are  earnest  and  capable  in  their  university  work,  O's 
work  being  regarded  as  exceptionally  good.     (4)   They  are  quite  normal, 


430  CONTRIBUTIONS  BY  DR.  L.  J.  MARTIN 

and  (5),  judging  from  what  has  been  reported  in  connection  with  auto- 
matic writing,  I  take  it  that  more  pains  has  been  taken  in  these  experi- 
ments by  constantly  drawing  the  observer's  attention  to  the  danger  of 
imperfect  observation,  to  guard  against  it. 

The  results  of  the  experiments  made  by  M  and  O  follow.  In  case 
of  each  experiment  I  give  on  Plate  A,  a  tracing  of  what  was  written 
automatically,  in  a  parenthesis  the  content  of  the  writing  as  I  decipher 
it,  and  finally  the  observer's  introspections  in  connection  with  what  he 
had  written.  At  the  end  of  each  test  the  observer  was  questioned  as  to 
his  knowledge  of  what  he  had  written.  Where  nothing  is  expressly  re- 
corded in  connection  with  the  test  the  observer  did  not  know.  To 
farther  test  the  automatic  character  of  what  had  been  written,  it  was 
shown  to  the  observer  in  nearly  every  case,  immediately  after  the  ex- 
periment was  finished  and  he  had  given  his  introspection  to  protocol, 
and  he  was  questioned  as  to  the  presence  of  ideas  in  consciousness  in 
any  way  corresponding  to  it.     Results  with  M : — 

Exp.  I.  Imagine  a  landscape.  In  each  experiment  the  observer  was  told 
the  imaging  and  recalling  was  to  be  entirely  subconscious. 

(The  Greek  letters  Delta,  Phi,  Sigma,  Mu  and  Alpha  will  be  recognized  in 
the  writing.)  After  being  shown  the  writing,  the  observer  said,  "Coming  out  on 
the  street-car  I  read  a  mathematical  article  in  which  Greek  letters  were  employed 
in  the  formulae." 

Exp.  2.  Can  you  recall  the  color  of  the  dress  Mrs.  S.  wore  last  night?  An- 
swer. "No."  Directed  the  observer  to  write  the  color  automatically,  ("la,  la, 
lave  lave")  "The  question  was,  'Do  you  know  the  color  of  the  dress  Mrs.  S. 
wore  last  night?"  "Felt  hand  moving  with  nervous  twitching,  but  had  no  idea 
as  to  whether  it  was  writing  or  what  it  was  doing.  The  feeling  of  the  arm  was 
uncomfortable,  as  though  it  were  'going  to  sleep.'  7  When  I  saw  the  'lav'  I  recalled 
at  once  that  the  dress  was  lavender." 

Exp.  3.  Image  something.  Write  automatically  a  few  words  telling  me 
what  you  were  imagining  under  the  threshold  of  consciousness. 

("death  penalty")  "As  I  read,  there  came  spontaneous  visual  images, — 
first  of  the  scaffold  at  San  Quentin ;  then  the  warden  standing  on  the  scaffold, 
and  a  number  of  men,  rather  indistinct,  moving  about ;  then,  of  the  black  cap  or 
hood  being  drawn  over  the  head  of  the  man  to  be  executed.  The  image  of  the 
black  cap  became  very  strong,  almost  blotting  out  the  page  I  was  reading,  and 
the  rest  of  the  images  faded.  There  was  a  very  strong  emotional  reaction.  In 
July,  1913,  I  witnessed  an  execution  at  San  Quentin.  The  images  of  the  scaf- 
fold and  of  Warden  Hoyle  were  recognized.  The  rest  of  the  images  were  imag- 
inary.    I  was  not  at  all  conscious  of  my  arm  and  hand,  or  of  writing  anything." 


7  The  ease  with  which  M.  followed  the  instructions  as  to  what  he  was  to 
write  even  where  he  was  not  conscious  of  doing  so,  explains  the  occasional  non- 
effectiveness  of  distractors.  In  some  cases,  where  the  distraction  does  not  seem 
to  materially  affect  the  perfection  of  the  work  accomplished,  the  task  set  is  doubt- 
less carried  out  automatically. 


AN  EXPERIMENTAL  STUDY  OF  THE  SUBCONSCIOUS 


431 


Exp.  4.     Image  something. 

("Three  hills  red  silver  Jack  Campbell")  "I  was  conscious  of  some  move- 
ment in  the  hand,  but  had  no  knowledge  of  its  nature."  On  seeing  the  writing, 
observer  said,  "Jack  Campbell  was  a  mining  man  whom  I  knew  in  Goldfield, 
Nevada,  some  years  ago.  The  mountains  in  this  region  are  often  brilliantly 
colored." 

Exp.  5.     Remember  something. 

("Casper  Rummer's   funeral   rain  Jack")     "Consciousness  of  movement,  not 


Plate  A. —  Observer  M. 


432  CONTRIBUTIONS  BY  DR.  L.  J.  MARTIN 

of  what  was  written.  Not  conscious  of  contractions  in  hand.  I  took  charge  of 
the  funeral  of  one  Casper  Kummer,  at  Goldfield,  Nevada.  During  the  service 
there  was  a  violent  thunder  storm.  I  did  not  recall  the  occurrence  until  I  had 
looked  at  what  I  had  written.     I  do  not  remember  any  'Jack'  in  this  connection." 

Exp.  6.  Remember  something  and  write  a  fuller  description  than  you  have 
previously  written. 

"Conscious  of  movement,  not  of  its  nature.  Thought  casually  as  I  was  read- 
ing, of  recent  visit  to  Carmel,  and  of  a  man  who  talked  interminably,  saying 
nothing."  Evidently  the  execution  of  the  task  given  was  beyond  the  observer's 
subconscious  mind. 

Exp.   7.     Remember  something. 

("snow  snow  snownowshoes  Salmon  Lake  Happy  Jack  snow  Denny")  "I 
felt  the  long  backward  movement  of  hand,  and  once  or  twice  movement  of  the 
fingers.  I  did  not  know  what  was  written  until  I  saw  it.  I  was  in  Sierra  Co.,  in 
December,  in  ten  feet  of  snow,  without  snow  shoes.  Stayed  at  Salmon  Lake 
Camp.  Happy  Jack  is  a  stage-driver  with  whom  I  rode.  'Denny'  was  a  man 
who  worked  for  me  several  days.  We  improvised  snow-shoes  from  pieces  of 
board." 

Exp.  8.  Put  pencil  in  his  hand  and  sheet  of  paper  before  him.  Told  him 
to  read  in  Emmy  Lou  and  not  to  think  of  writing,  or  not  writing. 

("war  with  Mexico  iniquitous  Villa  Wilson  procras")  "I  felt  a  slight  dis- 
comfort in  the  arm,  and  knew  there  were  occasional  movements.  I  was  conscious 
of  the  word  'Mexico,'  at  least  three  times  repeated ;  it  was  heard  as  though  I 
spoke  it  inside  the  head,  not  through  the  outer  ear.  I  do  not  know  at  all  what  I 
wrote."  I  did  not  show  him  what  he  had  written  even  after  his  introspections 
had  been  written. 

Exp.  9.     Instructions  of  Exp.  8  repeated. 

("Wilson  silly  Bryan  is  a  chump")  "I  knew  only  that  my  hand  was 
moving." 

Exp.  10     Remember  a  man.     Write  complete  sentences. 

("Saw  Henri  Bardon  at  Indep  riding  bay")  "I  was  conscious  of  movement 
of  the  hand,  not  of  what  was  written.  I  knew  the  man  Henri  Bardon,  near  In- 
dependence, Inyo  County,  some  years  ago.  He  was  a  splendid  horseman  and  rode 
a  vicious  bay  colt.  I  have  seldom  thought  of  him  since.  I  did  not  recall  him  un- 
til I  saw  what  I  had  written." 

Exp.  II.  Asked  him  to  write  words  of  Exp.  10  as  he  would  normally  write 
them.  Used  the  same  pencil,  same  position,  etc.  It  will  be  seen  his  automatic 
writing  is  not  greatly  different  from  his  ordinary  writing. 

Exp.   12.     Image  a  man. 

("Salmon  River  Indian  white  hair  verrrry  dirty  crooked  nose")  "As  usual, 
I  was  conscious  of  movement,  not  of  the  writing.  As  I  read,  I  had  a  visual 
image  8  of  a  map  of  the  north-west  part  of  the  state,  including  Del  Norte  and 
parts  of  Siskiyou  and  Trinity  Counties.  I  excluded  this  image  as  soon  as  formed. 
The  map  was  colored  similar  to  maps  in  the  old  school  geographies.  I  do  not 
know  what  I  wrote."  After  seeng  what  he  had  written  he  said  he  spent  last  win- 
ter on  Salmon  River  in  Siskiyou  County.     Does  not  remember  this  Indian. 


8  Compare  Prince  :     The  Subconscious,  p.  169. 


AN  EXPERIMENTAL  STUDY  OF  THE  SUBCONSCIOUS  433 

Exp.  13.     Remember  a  church. 

("Small  square  seven  logs  high  shake  roof")  "Saw  several  pictures  of  Stir- 
ling City,  a  lumber-camp  and  mill-town  in  Butte  Co.,  but  no  church.  I  was  con- 
scious of  movement  and  of  cramped  position  of  hand ;  not  of  what  was  written. 
After  seeing  what  he  had  written  he  said:  "They  built  a  church  at  Stirling  City 
after  I  left  the  town;  I  have  never  seen  it,  but  have  heard  it  described.  This 
description  corresponds  with  what  I  have  heard  of  the  church." 

Exp.  15.  Give  the  inversion  temperature  of  nephilite  to  carnegisite.  Has 
used  this  temperature  in  connection  with  his  work.  Says  he  knows  it  is  between 
1 150  and  1400. 

("12460")  "I  was  conscious  of  movement.  Before  I  began  to  write  I  heard 
numbers — 1320,  1328,  1370,  etc.,  all  above  1300."  Book  shows  this  temperature 
point  lies  between  1245°  and  1252°.     Aver.  =  12480. 

Exp.  16.  Give  the  boiling  point  of  tin.  Observer  knows  it  is  under  4000. 
He  thinks  260°.  Says  he  has  often  read  the  boiling  point  in  papers  from  the  Geo- 
physical Laboratory  at  Washington. 

("2240").     Boiling  point  of  tin  is  231  9/10. 
Exp.   17.     Told  to  hold  hand  still  and  remember  something. 
Exp.  18.     Remember  some  forgotten  experience  of  your  childhood. 
("Susan  cried  Ruth  ate  all  her  cake  She  get  got  some  m")     Before  seeing 
the  writing  he  wrote,   "A  glimpse  of  the  path   to  my  grandmother's  house,  with 
currant  bushes  at  one  side,  in  soft  sunlight.     No  persons  seen  or  heard." 

With  a  view  to  combining  the  visual  image  method  and  the  writing  method 
I  told  the  observer  to  assume  a  passive  attitude.  "The  same  path,  with  three 
rows  of  currant  bushes ;  a  tree,  with  general  shape  of  an  oak,  with  a  swing. 
Grandmother's  house  in  the  distance.  Carrie  Looney  walking  on  the  path.  Hollis 
Looney  some  distance  behind."  On  seeing  writing,  said  he  could  recall  no  such 
circumstances. 

Exp.  19.     Repeated  17. 

("New  ssshoes  got  John  rowed  boat.")  "A  bit  of  the  road  in  front  of  grand- 
mother's house,  where  it  crossed  the  railroad ;  looking  toward  the  river.  A 
glimpse  of  a  quarry  near  the  river.  No  auditory  images.  A  sense  of  slow  move- 
ment in  arm."  On  seeing  the  writing  did  not  recall  the  experience  but  remarked 
on  the  next  experiment  day  that  "Some  three  hours  after  the  experiment,  I  re- 
called that  on  one  occasion,  my  father,  the  man  John,  some  other  people  and  I, 
were  in  a  boat  on  the  river.  He  was  awkward  and  splashed  the  water.  I  was 
disturbed,  fearing  that  my  new  shoes,  of  which  I  was  proud,  would  be  wet." 
Exp.  20.  Write  some  Latin  sentence  previously  seen  but  forgotten. 
("O  olml  write  to  Orrin  Fairfield  Is  will  dead")  "I  heard  the  scratch  of 
the  pencil,  and  was  much  more  conscious  of  the  movements  than  usual,  and  I 
was  not  surprised  when  I  saw  what  I  had  written.  The  friend,  "Will,"  I  have 
not  heard  from  for  several  years.  Three  days  ago  I  dreamed  an  unusual  dream 
about  him  and  he  has  been  much  in  my  mind  since.  Particularly  I  have  won- 
dered if  he  were  perhaps  dead.  I  have  thought  of  writing  to  his  wife's  people, 
the  Fairfields." 

Exp.  21.     Remember  something. 

("Dead  mouse  Ruth  found  dead  owl  Burrried  them")  Before  seeing  the 
writing  he  wrote,  "I  was  conscious  of  the  movements,  as  usual.  Toward  the  end 
I  was   more  or  less  conscious  of  an  association  of  the  writing  with  a  series  of 


434  CONTRIBUTIONS  BY  DR.  L.  J.  MARTIN 

strong  memory  images  that  arose  to  the  exclusion  of  my  reading.  I  do  not  know, 
however,  what  words  I  wrote.  A  corner  of  the  pasture  back  of  grandmother's 
house,  next  the  hills ;  a  little  creek,  tumbling  down  over  some  rocks ;  birch  trees 
and  bushes,  and  a  bank  of  ferns.  Here  we  had  a  grave  yard,  and  Ruth,  Jessie, 
Ruby  and  I  buried  all  sorts  of  things  with  much  ceremony, — a  broken  doll,  a  dead 
mouse,  a  cat,  etc.  Also  a  little  boy  from  across  the  street  played  with  us  occa- 
sionally, whose  name  I  do  not  recall."  Did  not  remember  the  owl  they  buried 
until  he  saw  the  word  written  on  the  paper. 

Exp.  22.     Remember  something. 

("Johnie  Glenn  Johohnie  Glenn")  "I  was  not  at  all  conscious  of  the  writ- 
ing, only  vaguely  of  the  movements,  being  interested  in  the  book.  I  do  not  know 
what  I  wrote."  On  seeing  the  writing  said,  "Johnie  Glenn  was  the  name  of  the 
little  boy  across  the  street,  whose  name  I  was  trying  to  remember  in  the  last  ex- 
periment but  could  not  and  whom  I  referred  to  in  the  previous  experiment."  9 

Exp.  23.     Write  name  of  my  mother. 

Exp.  24.     Write  me  the  name  of  my  uncle  who  died  in  California. 

("No  No")  "Conscious  of  movement  but  did  not  know  what  I  wrote  or 
had  I  'no'  in  mind." 

Exp.  25.     Give  me  some  incident  of  my  life  in  Indianapolis. 

"I  felt  a  slight  twitching  in  the  fingers,  and  then  became  aware  of  a  vague 
feeling  of  discomfort,  of  being  somewhat  troubled  and  uncertain." 

Exp.  26.     Repeated  Exp.  23.     Evidently  he  has  no  "clairvoyant"  power. 

Exp.  27.  Told  to  recall  a  room  and  to  write  automatically  more  fully  than 
he  had  done  usually. 

("Two  windows  Red  carpet  wp  flowers  Black  hair  sofa  Whatnot  mustnt 
touch") 

"A  persistent,  spontaneous  image  of  a  corner  of  the  outside  of  my  grand- 
mother's house."  Before  showing  him  the  writing  I  told  him  to  allow  a  V- 
image  to  arise  spontaneously  of  what  he  had  written.  "Three  images  arose : 
first,  window  of  'sitting  room,'  with  canary  in  gilt  cage;  second,  large  heating 
stove  in  same  room ;  third,  corner  of  'parlor'  with  'What-not'  of  five  shelves, 
with  shells,  etc." 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  writing  increased  in  size  as  the  experi- 
ments progressed  in  case  of  both  M  and  O.  This  was  due  to  the  fact, 
doubtless,  that  not  only  the  experimenter  but  the  observer  himself  found 
it  hard  to  decipher  the  early  writing,  partly  on  account  of  its  small  size. 
The  experiments  that  follow  are  those  made  with  O,  who  started  to 
write  at  once  without  the  preliminary  hand  twitchings  that  were  ob- 
served in  case  of  M.  The  automatic  writing  in  connection  with  each 
experiment  is  given  in  Plate  B. 

9  One  is  surprised  from  experiences  like  this  that  in  experiments  on  memory 
so  little  attention  has  been  given  to  the  significance  of  the  passive  attitude  as  an  aid 
to  recall. 


AN  EXPERIMENTAL  STUDY  OF  THE  SUBCONSCIOUS  435 

Exp.  I.  After  putting  the  pencil  in  observer's  right  hand  she  was  told  to 
read. 

("Compress  Did")  "I  was  conscious  of  no  movement  except  the  ordinary 
movement  felt  in  breathing.     I  do  not  know  that  I  wrote  or  what  I  wrote." 

Exp.  2.     Image  something. 

("Wildness,  alone  never")  "I  was  unaware  of  the  formation  ef  letters.  I 
feel  tired  tonight  but  I  did  not  consciously  put  it  into  words. 


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Plate  B.—  Observer  O. 

Exp.  3.     Write  the  above  words  in  your  ordinary  handwriting. 

Exp.  4.     Remember  something. 

("Amusing  eyes.  They  do  not  tell  the  truth  fascinating")  "Merely  con- 
scious of  movements  due  to  breathing." 

Exp.  5.    Remember  a  man's  name. 

("Chapman")  "I  was  unconscious  of  writing  and  had  not  thought  of  the 
particular  name  written." 

Exp.  6.    Remember  a  man. 

("Childish  but  old  too  Brags  too  much  Disgusting.")  "Do  not  know  the 
man  referred  to." 


436  CONTRIBUTIONS   BY  DR.  L.  J.  MARTIN 

Exp.  7.     Write  the  name  of  the  man  just  described. 

("Chapman")  "There  is  a  general  feeling  of  annoyance  but  it  was  not  in 
connection  with  the  subjects  written  about,  I  do  not  think,  but  on  account  of  the 
university  work  I  have  before  me  to  do.  Lately  I  have  been  troubled  by  dreams 
in  which  I  was  studying  very  hard.     I  have  been  awakened  by  my  own  talking." 

As  one  looks  over  all  the  writing  of  O,  one  is  impressed  with  the  idea  that 
what  is  uppermost  under  the  threshold  of  consciousness  during  these  experiments 
is  not  of  a  pleasant  nature. 

Exp.  8.     Remember  a  pleasant  experience  of  your  childhood. 

("Never  any  Why  should  I  remember  No  No  No  Never  now  guten  Nacht" 
[written  in  German  script].)  "Heard  scratching  movements  of  the  pen  but  knew 
nothing  farther  of  the  writing.  Have  not  had  in  these  or  the  other  experiments 
visual  or  auditory  images.     Have  not  written  any  German  script  for  years." 

Exp.  9.     Image  something. 

("Quite  dead  Dont  come  Funeral  Are  you  satisfied.")  "I  was  reading  an 
amusing  incident  in  a  kindergarten  and  was  unconscious  of  any  movement  except 
the  usual  swaying  movement  which  accompanies  breathing." 

Exp.  10.     Write  my  mother's  name. 

("Remember  now.") 

Exp.  11.     Write  name  of  my  uncle  who  died  in  California. 

("why  why.")  "In  neither  of  above  cases  did  I  expect  to  write  anything. 
Was  only  conscious  of  breathing  movements  of  hand." 

Exp.  12.     Remember  church. 

("Its  not  where  I  want  it  Oh  dear  Ugly  Bad  color.") 

Exp.  13.     Write  the  name  of  the  church  described  in  last  experiment. 

("why  why") 

Exp.  14.     Repeated  Exp.  12. 

("well  cant  remember.") 

Exp.  15.     Repeated  Exp.  12. 

("Just  Catholic  but  why,  why  neces  pas.")  "I  did  not  expect  to  write  auto- 
matically and  was  in  every  case  surprised  at  the  results.  I  heard  the  scratching 
of  the  pencil  at  times  but  was  not  aware  that  I  was  writing  words." 

The  above  experimental  results  show  ( 1 )  that  while  theoretically 
the  subconscious  experience  is  reproduced  through  automatic  writing 
without  entering  consciousness,  to  be  certain  that  this  actually  occurred, 
that  is,  to  be  certain  that  the  experience  did  not  enter  consciousness  and 
after  such  entrance  more  or  less  influence  and  direct  the  writing,  one 
must  have  observers  who  have  the  ability  and  the  training  to  introspect 
/very  accurately.  (2)  That  the  image  method  has  a  much  wider  applica- 
bility, as  it  can  be  employed  with  any  one  who  has  visual  and  other 
images,  while  the  automatic  writing  method,  as  is  shown  by  these  ex- 
periments and  by  others,  is  very  limited  in  its  application.  In  these  ex- 
periments only  two  out  of  the  19  persons  were  really  able  to  respond  to 
the  task  set.  (3)  The  image  method  gives  more  information  in  a  given 
period  of  time  and  thereby  decreases  the  difficulty  of  the  introspection. 


AN  EXPERIMENTAL  STUDY  OF  THE  SUBCONSCIOUS  437 

(4)  In  the  image  method  the  experience  is  brought  above  the  threshold 
and  the  observer  is  encouraged  to  give  his  full  attention  to  what  occurs, 
and  he  may  be  directed  to  observe  particular  things.  (5)  In  the  image 
method  it  is  not  necessary  to  direct  the  movement  connected  with  the 
giving  of  the  information  into  an  entirely  new  channel  by  substituting 
the  action  of  lower  nerve  centers  (centers  connected  with  subconscious 
thinking)  for  the  higher  (centers  connected  with  conscious  thinking) 
which  usually  largely  direct  it.  (6)  In  a  confirmatory  way  the  writing 
method  may  be  made  very  useful.  The  great  richness,  for  example,  of 
what  is  under  the  threshold  of  consciousness  in  case  of  M  and  O  is 
shown  by  both  methods.  (7)  Each  method  also  brings  things  to  the  at- 
tention not  brought  out  by  the  other  method.  The  tendency  of  the  writ- 
ing movements  to  be  at  the  disposal  of  what  is  in  consciousness  is,  for 
example,  very  noticeable  in  case  of  some  observers.  In  case  of  M  and 
O  what  is  below  the  threshold  evidently  plays  also  a  role  as  regards  the 
writing. 

Automatic  Speaking  Method  Versus  the  Image  Method. 

Of  some  special  cases  of  automatic  speaking  I  have  given  illustra- 
tions in  my  study  entitled  "Die  Projektionsmethode"  (p.  5,  105). 
From  what  is  heard  by  the  patient  himself  or  by  the  experimenter,  an 
idea  can  be  obtained  of  course  of  what  is  going  on  under  the  threshold 
of  consciousness.  The  words  occasionally  unconsciously  spoken  by  a 
normal  person  give  one  a  similar  idea.  It  will  be  at  once  evident,  how- 
ever, without  any  comparative  experiments  that  the  image  method  has 
a  very  much  broader  field  of  usefulness  because  of  the  difficulty  of  get- 
ting an  adequate  distraction  in  using  the  automatic  speaking  method. 

The  Image  Method   Versus  the  Pathological  and   the  Psychoanalytical 
Methods  of  Investigating  the  Subconscious. 

The  other  methods  of  investigating  the  subconscious  I  find  less  sat- 
isfactory than  the  automatic  writing  and  speaking  methods.  The  objec- 
tion to  the  pathological  method,  where  the  data  regarding  the  subcon- 
scious is  obtained  for  example  from  cases  of  double  personality,  is  the 
feeling  of  doubt  and  even  mistrust  with  which  one  often  collects  and 
examines  such  data. 

The  objection  to  the  method  of  psychoanalysis  is  that  the  instruc- 
tion given  to  the  patient  to  speak  out  everything  that  comes  into  his 
mind,  gives  a  mass  of  data  which  contains  not  only  what  is  below  but 


438  CONTRIBUTIONS  BY  DR.  L.  J.  MARTIN 

what  is  above  the  threshold  and  farther  that  in  applying  this  method  no 
systematic  effort  is  made,  as  in  the  case  of  the  image  method,  to  separ- 
ate out  and  classify  such  data. 

Taken  all  in  all,  it  seems  to  me,  the  results  show  that  the  image 
method  offers  a  mode  of  penetrating  below  the  threshold  of  conscious- 
ness which  is  at  least  comparable  if  not  superior  to  that  offered  by  other 
methods. 


APPENDIX. 


APPENDIX  A. 
TABLES. 


TABLE  XIIIo.*     {Vide,  p.  55,  supra). 
Right  Guesses  on  Playing-Cards. 

Reduced  to  Sets  of  50. 
A.  Normal  Reagents. 

Card  Not  Imaged.  Card  Imaged. 

Card  Color  No.    Suit     W  Card  Color  No.  Suit  W 

Probable    Number    ...   1.25   25        5        12.5     22.5  1.25   25  5        12.5  22.5 
Reagent 

1st    1000          / 4        24        5        15        25  3        24  8        12  23 

s 3        28        5        15       21  o        19  6         6  28 

3 2        38        5        20        11  2        26  5        11  23 

4 2        23        5        14        24  2        26  7        12  19 

5 2        23        6         9        23  1         18  3        11  29 

6 2        30        6        12        16  o        27  4        10  21 

7 1         19        3        12        30  2        28  3        12  22 

8 o       25        5        13       22  o       20  2        13  28 

9 o       26       3        11        20  1        21  4  12  26 

10 2        28       4        14       21  1        26  5  16  20 

Totals    18      264      47      135      213  12      235  47  us  239 

2d    1000         // 1        25        8        14        20  2        26  8  12  18 

is 1        26       7        13        18  1        29  8  15  19 

'3 2       20        7         8       27  1        18  4         7  30 

14 o       26       3        11        22  1        21  6         9  24 

A5 1        28        5        12        20  o        25  4  14  23 

'6 1        23        4        14        25  1        29  6  15  19 

'7 3        25        6        11        23  1        25  4  19  22 

'8 1        23        7          9        23  1         19  2  11  30 

19 2        25       10        17        19  2        24  6  11  22 

20 o        24        6        11        21  1        28  5  15  20 

Totals    12      245      63      120      218  11      244  S3  128  227 

*  Deviations  from  this  table  are  used  in  Table  XIV  (pp.  57  ff.).   The  reductions 

were  made  by  slide-rule  from  Table  XIII   (pp.  56  ff.)     Only  in  this  Table  can  the 

gross  numbers  of  Right  cases  made  by  the  respective  reagents  be  compared. 

441 


442 


APPENDIX  A 


TABLE  XIIIo— Continued. 

Card  Not  Imaged.  Card  Imaged. 

Card  Color  No.    Suit  W  Card  Color  No.  Suit  W 

Probable    Number    ...   1.25   25  5  12.5  22.5  1.25   25  5  12.5  22.5 
Reagent 

3d   1000         21 1  20  2  7  30  2  20  6  12  26 

99 o  32  1  13  18  1  19  3  7  28 

23 o  26  1  17  23  2  21  s  11  25 

24 o  29  7  13  19  1  26  6  15  21 

•?5 4  30  9  19  17  4  29  11  16  18 

26 o  27  1  19  22  4  26  9  13  21 

27 o  18  1  11  32  2  27  7  15  18 

a? 2  23  3  15  26  1  25  s  14  22 

29 o  24  2  15  25  o  28  4  7  20 

jo o  20  1  10  28  3  25  10  15  21 

Totals   7  249  28  139  240  20  246  66  125  220 

4th    1000       31 o  18  4  9  29  2  29  6  16  19 

39 5  25  8  17  25  6  27  10  20  20 

33 2  30  5  17  17  2  32  s  20  18 

34 2  26  4  16  22  1  31  6  14  15 

35 1  25  3  16  24  o  27  3  12  22 

36 1  30  8  15  16  2  29  5  17  21 

37 2  35  5  21  13  o  20  6  11  25 

38 o  20  4  9  27  2  26  4  10  23 

39 o  20  2  10  28  1  25  3  14  24 

40 o  24  1  11  26  4  27  6  16  22 

Totals   13  253  44  141  227  20  273  54  150  209 . 

5th  1000        41 1  30  4  11  17  3  25  9  10  31 

42 1  24  2  13  24  3  25  10  12  19 

43 2  32  4  12  18  o  24  4  12  23 

44 o  27  4  14  19  1  24  7  12  21 

45 1  24  6  10  23  o  29  3  15  19 

46 2  29  8  11  16  2  21  4  13  28 

47 o  28  1  14  22  2  28  8  15  17 

48 1  27  s  11  20  o  27  5  15  22 

49 1  27  8  12  19  4  25  11  17  22 

50 1  25  3  9  24  1  27  5  12  20 

Totals   10  273  45  117  202  16  255  66  133  212 


TABLES 


443 


TABLE  XHIa— Continued. 

Card  Not  Imaged. 

Card  Color  No.   Suit  W 

Probable    Number    ...   1.25  25  5  12.5  22.5 
Reagent 

6th  1000        5/ 4  20  7  14  28 

52 3  33  5  13  17 

53 1  25  6  11  22 

54 2  23  7  15  23 

55 2  23  4  10  24 

56 o  26  7  9  21 

57 2  20  5  7  27 

58 1  27  9  11  18 

59 1  36  S  21  13 

60 1  27  4  12  20 

Totals   17  260  59  123  213 

7th  1000        67 1  26  6  14  20 

62 1  30  2  13  20 

63 2  26  7  16  22 

64 6  31  9  17  18 

65 2  24  6  12  24 

66 3  25  8  10  25 

67 2  29  6  17  19 

68 2  25  8  10  21 

69 2  25  3  16  24 

70 2  25  8  12  22 

Totals   23  266  63  137  215 

8th  1000        71 2  25  2  13  25 

73 2  22  6  13  26 

73 1  29  S  19  19 

74 3  29  6  15  18 

75 o  28  8  13  16 

76 3  28  10  13  19 

77 1  29  5  13  18 

78 2  27  3  17  21 

79 0  16  5  9  31 

80 O  27  3  II  21 

Totals    14  260  53  136  214 


Card  Imaged. 
Card  Color  No.    Suit    W 


125  25 


12.5  22.5 


2 

22 

6 

13 

25 

2 

26 

7 

18 

21 

I 

26 

5 

12 

20 

I 

23 

4 

13 

24 

I 

19 

2 

10 

30 

2 

32 

5 

18 

16 

3 

21 

6 

14 

25 

I 

21 

5 

12 

26 

4 

26 

8 

11 

20 

2 

26 

7 

15 

22 

19 

242 

55 

136 

229 

0 

22 

0 

12 

28 

0 

29 

4 

9 

19 

4 

25 

6 

19 

23 

3 

26 

7 

14 

24 

1 

24 

3 

11 

23 

3 

24 

11 

15 

20 

0 

18 

4 

12 

28 

2 

27 

5 

15 

22 

2 

26 

5 

12 

22 

2 

18 

5 

11 

29 

17  239  50  130  238 


I 

21 

5 

14 

28 

0 

25 

3 

8 

25 

I 

20 

6 

9 

26 

0 

29 

2 

15 

20 

2 

23 

6 

14 

24 

I 

25 

4 

12 

23 

2 

17 

7 

9 

28 

5 

23 

7 

15 

26 

2 

26 

3 

13 

23 

0 

26 

3 

14 

21 

14  235  46  123  244 


444 


APPENDIX  A 


TABLE  XIIIo— Continued. 

Card  Not  Imaged.  Card  Imaged. 

Card  Color  No.  Suit  W  Card  Color  No.  Suit  W 

Probable  Number  ...  1.25  25  5  12.5  22.5  1.25  25  5  12.5  22.5 
Reagent 

9th  1000   81 1  20  3  9  29  1  26  4  12  21 

82 o  27  3  17  20  1  26  4  13  23 

83 2  26  5  14  23  1  23  6  12  23 

84 2  28  8  12  17  1  29  6  14  19 

85 1  18  4  9  30  1  26  5  11  20 

86 1  31  4  13  17  3  30  6  17  17 

57 o  24  4  8  22  1  23  6  10  24 

88 2  32  4  13  17  0  23  2  12  27 

89 o  31  4  15  17  2  23  3  10  26 

po 1  21  5  11  26  1  24  7  10  20 

Totals  10  258  44  121  218  12  253  49  121  220 

10th  1000   0/ 2  26  5  14  21  1  3°  3  17  18 

92 1  22  s  11  27  1  20  8  12  24 

93 4  26  6  10  22  1  25  4  13  24 

94 1  27  5  is  22  0  29  1  13  21 

95 1  19  6  11  28  1  21  6  16  25 

06 1  22  5  6  28  o  29  2  16  20 

97 2  24  3  11  26  4  24  4  13  26 

98 1  20  5  14  28  2  23  5  9  26 

99 3  23  7  17  25  2  26  S  16  22 

100 3  22  5  9  25  o  32  4  21  16 

Totals  19  231  52  118  252  12  259  42  146  222 

B.   Psychics. 

1 o  23  8  8  23  2  27  S  13  20 

2 o  22  2  11  26  2  24  8  11  22 

3 3  30  6  is  18  4  26  6  14  24 

4 1  24  3  13  23  2  26  7  11  19 

5 o  26  2  17  22  2  29  4  18  20 

6 1  27  3  18  23  2   20  5    7  28 

7 3  26  7  16  20  o  31  4  16  17 

a 2  23  6  18  23  3  29  6  14  19 

9 o  22  3  8  25  o   23  5  13  23 

jo 1  23  4  14  25  1    29  5  15  18 

Totals  11  246  44  138  228  18  264  55  132  210 


TABLES 


445 


TABLE  XIIIo— Continued. 

C.  Corneal  Reflection. 

Card  Not  Imaged 

Card  Color  No.    Suit  W 

Probable  Number 1.25    25        5        12.5  22.5 

Reagent 

/ 2        22        6        12  24 

// 1        22      10        12  21 

/// o        24        2        13  25 

IV 4        21       10        13  26 

V 1        31        6        14  15 

Totals    8      120      34        64  in 


Card  Imaged 
Card  Color  No.    Suit    W 
1.25   25        5        I2-S     22.5 


22 

38 

32 

24 

12 

30 

42, 

34 

35 

8 

26 

37 

35 

28 

10 

24 

47 

3i 

33 

3 

9 

32 

19 

16 

15 

196    151     136      48 


TABLE  XVa  * 

Aggregates  of  R  Cases. 

Reduced  to  Sets  of  50. 
A.   Students. 

Card  Not  Imaged.  Card  Imaged. 

Card  Color  No.  Suit  W  Card  Color  No.  Suit  W 

1st  1000  18   264   47    135  213  12  235  47  "5  239 

2d  1000  12   245   63    120  218  11  244  53  I28  227 

3d  1000  7   249   28    139  240  20  246  66  125  220 

4th  1000 13   253   44    141  227  20  273  54  ISO  209 

5th  1000 10   273   45    117  202  16  255  66  133  212 

6th  1000 17   260   59    123  213  19  242  55  136  229 

7th  1000 23   266   63    137  215  17  239  50  130  238 

8th  1000 14   260   53    136  214  14  235  46  123  244 

9th  1000 10   258   44    121  218  12  253  49  121  220 

10th  1000 19   231    52    118  252  12  259  42  146  222 

Totals  ....143   2559   498   1287  2212  153  2481  528  1307  2260 


B.  Psychics    . . 

11 

246 

44 

138 

228 

18 

264 

55 

132 

210 

C.  Corneal 

Reflection. 

8 

120 

34 

64 

in 

in 

196 

151 

136 

48 

♦Comparable  to  TaMe  XV  (p.  64),  but  based  on  Table  XIIIo. 


446 


APPENDIX   A 


TABLE  XVIa*. 
Per  Cents  of  R  Cases. 

A.  Students 

Card  Not  Imaged  Card  Imaged 

Card  Color     No.     Suit  W  Card  Color      No.  Suit  W 

ist  iooo  3.60  52.8  9.4  27.0  42.6  2.40  47-0  9-4  23-°  47-8 

2d   1000   2.40  49.0  12.6  24.0  43-6  2.20  48.8  10.6  25.6  45.4 

3d   1000   1.40  49.8  56  27.8  48.0  400  49-2  132  25.0  44-0 

4th  1000 2.60  50.6  8.8  28.2  45.4  400  54-6  i°-8  300  41.8 

5th  1000 2.00  54-6  90  23.4  404  3-20  510  132  26.6  42.4 

6th  1000 3.40  52.0  11.8  24.6  42.6  3.80  48.4  11.0  27.2  45.8 

7th  1000 4.60  53.2  12.6  27.4  43.0  3.40  47-8  10.0  26.0  47.6 

8th  1000 2.80  52.0  10.6  27.2  42.8  2.80  47.0  92  24.6  48.8 

9th  1000 2.00  51.6  8.8  24.2  43.6  2.40  50.6  9.8  24.2  44.0 

10th  1000 3.80  46.2  10.4  23.6  50.4  2.40  51.8  8.4  29.2  444 

Totals    ....2.86  51.2  10.0  25.7  44.2  3.06  49.6  10.6  26.1  45.2 

B.  Psychics    ...2.20  49-2  8.8  27.6  45-6  3-&>  52.8  II.O  26.4  420 

C.  Corneal 

Reflection    ...3.20  48.0  13.6  25.6  44.4  44-40  784  604  54.4  19.2 

Probable    2.50  50.0  10.0  25.0  450  2.50  50.0  10.0  25.0  45.0 


TABLE  XVIIa**. 

Deviations  from  Probable  Per  Cent. 

Reduced  to  Sets  of  50. 

A.  Students 

Card  Not  Imaged  Card  Imaged 

Card  Color  No.    Suit    W  Card  Color  No.  Suit  W 

ist    1000    +0.90    +2.8    -0.6    +2.0    -2.4  -0.10  -3.0  -0.6  -2.0  +2.8 

2d   1000 -010    -1.0    +2.6    -1.0    -1.4  -0.30  -1.2  +0.6  +0.6  +0.4 

3d    1000    -1. 10    -0.2    -4.4    +2.8    +3.0  +1.50  -0.8  +3.2      o  -1.0 

4th  1000  +0.10    +0.6    -1.2    +3.2    +0.4  +1.50  +4.6  +0.8  +5.0  -3.2 

5th  1000  -0.50    +4.6    -1.0    -1.6    -4.6  +0.70  +1.0  +3.2  +1.6  -2.6 

6th  1000  +0.90  +2.0  +1.8  -04  -2.4  +1.30  -1.6  +1.0  +2.2  +0.8 

7th  1000  +2.10  +3.2  +2.6  +2.4  -2.0  +0.90  -2.2  o  +1.0  +2.6 

8th  1000  +0.30  +2.0  +0.6  +2.2  -2.2  +0.30  -3.0  -0.8  -0.4  +3.8 

9th  1000  -0.50  +1.6  -1.2  -0.8  -1.4  -0.10  +0.6  -0.2  -0.8  -1.0 

10th   1000    +1.30    -3.8    +0.4    -14    +54  -010  +i-8  -1.6  +4.2  -0.6 

Total +0.36    +1.2      o       +0.7    -0.8  +0.56    -0.4    +0.6    +1.1    +0.2 

B.  Psychics     -0.30    -0.8    -1.2    +2.6    +0.6  +1.10    +2.8    +1.0    +1.4    -3.0 

C.  Corneal 

Reflection +0.70    -2.0    +3.6    +0.6    -0.6  +41.90+284+504+294-25.8 

♦Comparable  to  Table  XVI  (p.  64),  but  based  on  Table  XVo. 

**  Comparable  to  Table  XVII  (p.  65),  but  based  on  Table  XVIa.  This  and 
the  preceding  Table  show  by  their  close  approximations  to  their  corresponding 
Tables  XVI  and  XVII  that  the  "reduction  to  sets  of  50"  has  not  introduced  any 
important  errors.  Consequently  the  values  in  Table  XIV  (pp.  57-ff.)  may  be  con- 
fidently inspected. 


TABLES  447 

TABLE  XLIXo* 

Statistical  Expectation,  expressed  in  Per  Cent  of  R  Cases,  after  the  experiments 
were  concluded.  (52  Reagents). 

Reagent    Card   Color   No.  Suit   Reagent    Card  Color  No.  Suit 

32 6     60     17  60     64   5  50  10  25 

33 5     75     12  40     6$   S  70  15  40 

34 6     65     40  65     67   5  75  13  30 

35   6     70     15  30     68   5  65  is  38 

36   10     75     15  50     70   8  70  15  30 

37   10     70     30  45     71   3  60  15  25 

38   5     60     15  33     72   4  60  15  30 

39   5     60     12  25     73   3  50  10  50 

41   5     60     10  25     75   10  70  15  40 

42 15     75     35  65     76 10  70  20  35 

43   7     55     12.5  40     79   5  80  10  40 

44   3     60     12  50     81   3  50  25  45 

45   10     80     25  50     82 10  50  10  30 

47   7     60     15  35     83 3  65  10  35 

48   6     60     12  30     84   8  75  30  60 

49   5     70     14  35     S6   11  70  25  35 

50   3     52     10  30     87   5  75  12  50 

53 3     60     12  30     88 8  70  25  40 

54   6     60     10  28     89   5  60  15  25 

55   3     55     10  25     00 10  70  10  25 

56   5     60     15  35     91   10  75  10  25 

57   4     50     20  25     92 5  60  14  30 

5*  5     60     25  35     93   5  60  30  35 

61   10     65     23  35     94 3  75  20  30 

62   10     70     20  50     95   2.5  70  15  50 

63   5     50     15  30     98 2.5  60  25  40 

Card  Color             No.  Suit  W 

Totals   :.      319  3342            880.5  1939  1457-75 

Average    6.14  64.3              16.9  37.2  28.0 

%  Dev.  (100) +3.64  +14.3             +6.9  +12.2  -17.0 

%  Dev.    (50) 728  28.6              13.8  24.4  -34.0 


In  Plate  X  (p.  m),  the  first  curve  was  drawn  from  the  last  line  of  the  table. 


448 


APPENDIX   A 


TABLE  XLIX6.* 
Expectation  of  52  Reagents  distributed  with  Probability. 
Card  Number 


X 

E 

0 

0 

I 

0 

2 

3-8 

3 

17-3 

4 

3-8 

5 

327 

6 

9-6 

7 

3-8 

8 

5-8 

9 

0 

10 

19.2 

11 

1-9 

12 

0 

13 

0 

14 

0 

15 

1-9 

36.5 


134 


5.8 


1.9 


p 
7.96 

20.4 

259 

21.7 

13-5 
6.6 

2-7 

0.9 

0.28 

0.07 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 


99.8  99.8  IOO.OI 


28.4 
47.6 

20.1 

3.6 

0.3 


X 
0 

I 

2 

3 
4 
5 
6 

7 
8 

9 
10 
11 
12 
13 
14 
15 
16 

17 
18 

'9 
20 

23 
25 
30 
35 
40 


E 
o 
o 
o 
o 
o 
o 
o 
o 
o 
o 

21.2 

o 

135 
1.9 

3.8 

26.9 
o 

1-9 

o 
o 

77 
1.9 
11.6 
5-8 
1.9 
1.9 


34-7 


34-5 


7-7 

13-5 
5-8 
1-9 
1.9 

100.0 


p 

o 

0.02 
0.l6 

0.6 
1.6 

3-4 
6.0 

8.9 
n-5 
130 

132 
12.0 

9-8 

74 

5-1 

3-3 

1-9 

1.1 

0-5 

0-3 

0.1 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

99.88 


20.5 


59-5 


18.8 


0.9 

0 
0 
o 
o 

99-9 


*  The  distributions  in  this  table  were  used  to  draw  the  curves  in   Plate  XI 
(p.  in). 


TABLES  449 

TABLE  XLIX6— Continued. 
Expectation  of  52  Reagents  distributed  with  Probability. 
Color  Suit 


X 

f 

E 

£! 

p 

X 

E 

*, 

P 

Pi 

33 

0 

0.023 

8 

0 

O.OOI 

34 

0 

0.046 

9 

0 

0.003 

35 

0 

0.087 

10 

0 

0.009 

36 

0 

0.156 

11 

0 

0.026 

37 

0 

0 

0.270 

0 

.58 

12 

0 

0 

0.063 

O.IO 

38 

0 

0.448 

13 

0 

0.142 

39 

0 

0.711 

14 

0 

0.294 

40 

0 

1.09 

15 

0 

0.563 

41 

0 

i-59 

16 

0 

0.098 

42 

0 

0 

2.23 

6 

.07 

17 

0 

0 

1.650 

3.6s 

43 

0 

301 

18 

0 

2-53 

44 

0 

3-90 

19 

0 

364 

45 

0 

4-85 

20 

0 

4.92 

46 

0 

5.80 

21 

0 

6.25 

47 

0 

0 

6.66 

24 

22 

22 

0 

0 

7-49 

24.83 

48 

0 

7-35 

23 

0 

8.46 

49 

0 

7.81 

24 

0 

9.06 

50 

1 1.6 

7.96 

25 

17.3 

918 

5' 

0 

7.81 

26 

0 

8.83 

5* 

1-9 

135 

7-35 

38 

28 

27 

0 

17-3 

8.07 

4360 

53 

0 

6.66 

28 

1-9 

7.01 

54 

0 

5.80 

29 

0 

5-8o 

55 

3-8 

4-85 

30 

21.2 

4-58 

56 

0 

3-90 

31 

0 

3-45 

57 

0 

3.8 

3.01 

24 

22 

32 

0 

231 

2.48 

2332 

58 

0 

2.23 

33    ■ 

1-9 

1.70 

59 

0 

1  59 

34 

0 

1. 12 

60 

2,2-7 

1.09 

35 

17-3 

0.704 

61 

0 

0.71 1 

36 

0 

0.424 

62 

0 

32.7 

0.448 

6 

07 

37 

0 

19.2 

0.244 

4.19 

63 

0 

0.270 

38 

i-9 

O.I3S 

64 

0 

0.156 

39 

0 

0.072 

65 

77 

0.087 

40 

13-5 

0.036 

66 

0 

0.046 

41 

0 

0.018 

67 

0 

7-7 

0.023 

0. 

58 

42 

0 

iS-4 

0.008 

0.27 

70 

231 

23-1 

0 

0 

45 

3-8 

3-8 

0 

0 

75 

IS  4 

15-4 

0 

0 

50 

13.5 

13-5 

0 

0 

So 

3-8 

3-8 

0 

0 

55 
60 

65 

0 

3-8 

3-8 

0 

3-8 

3-8 

0 
0 
0 

0 
0 
0 

1 00.0 

100.0 

100.022 

100.02 

999 

999 

99.960 

9996 

450 


APPENDIX   A 


LISTS  OF  NONSENSE-SYLLABLES. 
(See  text,  p.  374,  footnote  8.) 


The  "pav"  List. 

1  2                      3 

1    pav  bote  brum 

2   tez  dotch  plike 

3   cheen  jeek  sprote 

4 kire  gaie  thell 

5   fabe  vem  blup 

6 soje  zile  troitch 

7   Hgr  roos  slafe 

8   med  nalt  shabe 

9   wung  pronch  splej 

KD   yajd  vrap  drav 

678 

1    Hgd  nevd  moosh 

2 mitcht  yast  wimd 

3   wazd  kosp  vumpt 

4 bort  chith  zogd 

5   dant  pel]  reng 

6 joord  bulf  brud 

7 gand  tusp  plaz 

8    vobde  fask  krim 

9    zulb  sadhe  Prag 

10 raid  leets  bliv 

The  "shug"  List. 

1  2                      3 

1   shug  pudh*  sug 

2   duf  duzh  lus 

3   gub  bup  nuth 

4 chud  zuk  thush 

5    thul  dhuv  shuf 

6    tus  fush  kutch 

7    vutch  vum  puzh 

8   kun  chuz  fub 

9   sut  mudh  zhum 

10    ruj  jur  dup 

*  Vocalized  th,  as  in  the,  is  written  dh. 


4 

5 

krig 

friss 

struzz 

skell 

dhane* 

hib 

klore 

whaj 

skradd 

pixe 

fless 

tept 

gntPP 

chakt 

sklatt 

kimpt 

spritch 

fint 

glick 

seft 

9 

10 

grun 

flates 

klare 

dhald 

frast 

sprix 

gluf 

shond 

thisk 

whart 

skeft 

spand 

splush 

trutcht 

hoovd 

drazd 

stalt 

dempt 

nept 

junt 

4 

5 

lun 

vus 

tuz 

judh 

rud 

kush 

guk 

nug 

chut 

zul 

buth 

guj 

zhul 

muv 

ruv 

tur 

tuj 

zhuf 

dhur 

nup 

TABLES  451 

The  "shug"  List — Continued. 

6  7  8  9  io 

i    suth  fup  dush  dhug  dhub 

2    lut  kuzh  thuv  zhud  shul 

3    shub  pum  jun  tul  fum 

4   juk  suf  rutch  fudh  zhup 

5      zum  zug  zud  puj  thun 

6    buzh  mub  budh  dut  gutch 

7    dhun  chus  puz  juf  vur 

8    kuz  nuk  guth  rus  nuzh 

9   mur  thut  lutch  buv  chuth 

io   shud  luj  vuk  sush  muz 

The  "su"  and  "ur"  Lists. 


i 

2 

3 

4 

S 

6 

7 

8 

9 

IO 

I 

su 

gu 

du 

zu 

mu 

chu 

shu 

zhu 

bu 

ju 

2 

.      ku 

vu 

fu 

tu 

thu 

dhu 

nu 

pu 

lu 

ru 

3 

ru 

lu 

pu 

nu 

dhu 

thu 

tu 

fu 

vu 

ku 

4 

■      ju 

bu 

zhu 

shu 

chu 

mu 

zu 

du 

gu 

su 

5 

su 

ku 

ru 

ju 

su 

gu 

vu 

lu 

bu 

ku 

6 

.      du 

fu 

pu 

zhu 

gu 

zu 

tu 

nu 

shu 

vu 

7 

mu 

tllll 

dhu 

chu 

du 

chu 

dhu 

thu 

mu 

fu 

8 

shu 

nu 

tu 

zu 

zu 

zhu 

PU 

fu 

du 

tu 

9 

.      bu 

lu 

vu 

gu 

mu 

J" 

ru 

ku 

su 

thu 

IO 

chu 

shu 

zhu 

bu 

ju 

dhu 

nu 

PU 

111 

ru 

i 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

io 

i 

ur 

111 

up 

un 

udh 

uj 

ub 

uzh 

ush 

uch 

2 

uth 

US 

uk 

ur 

uj 

um 

ug 

uv 

ul 

ub 

3 

ut 

ud 

uf 

up 

uzh 

uz 

uz 

ut 

un 

ush 

4 

.      tif 

um 

uth 

udh 

uch 

ud 

uch 

udh 

uth 

um 

5 

uv 

ush 

1111 

ut 

uz 

ug 

uzh 

up 

uf 

ud 

6 

.      uk 

ub 

111 

11 V 

ug 

us 

uj 

u  r 

uk 

us 

7 

us 

ug 

ud 

uz 

um 

uch 

ush 

uzh 

ub 

uj 

8 

.      uk 

uv 

uf 

ut 

uth 

udh 

un 

up 

ul 

ur 

9 

ur 

ul 

up 

un 

udh 

uth 

ut 

uf 

uv 

uk 

IO 

uj 

ub 

uzh 

ush 

uch 

um 

uz 

ud 

ugr 

us 

Pronounce   ch  as  in  churn  or  such,  Pronounce  j      as  in  jump  or  judge, 

sh   "    "  shut  "    brush,  g     "    "  gulf  "    cog, 

zh    "    "  azure  th    "    "  thud  "    myth, 

s      "    "  so  "    us,  dh  "    "  thus  "    scythe. 


APPENDIX  B. 


EXPERIMENTS  IN  LONG-DISTANCE  THOUGHT- 
TRANSFERENCE. 

It  is  much  to  be  desired  that  investigators  should  give  attention  to  obtaining 
more  results  in  this  branch  of  the  inquiry.  For  independently  of  the  fact  that  re- 
sults of  the  kind  form  an  indispensable  link  between  instances  ot  thought-transfer- 
ence at  close  quarters  and  the  more  striking  spontaneous  cases  at  a  distance,  it  is 
important  to  observe  that  in  experiments  of  the  kind  described  in  the  present 
chapter  the  gravest  objection  which  is  at  present  urged,  and  may  fairly  continue  to 
be  urged,  against  most  experiments  at  close  quarters — viz.,  the  risk  of  unconscious 
apprehension  through  normal  channels— is  no  longer  applicable.  Moreover,  the 
results  can  only  be  attributed  to  fraud  on  the  extreme  assumption  that  both  parties 
to  the  experiment  are  implicated  in  deliberate  and  systematic  collusion. — Frank 
Podmore:    Apparitions  and  Thought-Transference,  1894,  pp.  106-7. 

Further  experiment  is  much  to  be  desired,  and  those  of  your  readers  who  are 
interested  in  the  subject  can  confer  no  greater  benefit  on  psychical  research  than 
by  themselves  carrying  out  experiments  on  thought  transference  at  a  distance,  and 
so  adding  to  the  reliable  criteria  for  telepathic  communication.— Margaret  de  G. 
Verrall:  London  Daily  News,  September  6,  191 1;  also  Journal  S.P.R.,  October 
1911,  15:132. 

EXPERIMENTS  IN  LONG-DISTANCE  THOUGHT- 
TRANSFERENCE. 

There  have  been  reports  in  the  professional  literature  ol  long- 
distance thought-transference,  and  ever  since  the  time  of  Paracelsus  x 
belief  has  been  expressed  that  distance  is  no  barrier  to  the  transference 

of  thought. 

Consequently,  when  an  opportunity  occurred  (February,  1914)  some 
experimental  results  were  gathered.  Unfortunately,  some  of  the  pros- 
pective reagents  did  not  find  it  possible  to  take  the  series,  and  others 
were  unable  to  finish  it.  What  data  there  are,  however,  are  not  without 
value,  and  the  method  of  experiment  merits  record.  Results  from  this 
method  become  comparable  to  the  large  amount  of  statistical  data  already 
accumulated  and  can  therefore  be  readily  evaluated  and  interpreted. 


1  "By  the  magic  power  of  the  will  a  person  on  this  side  of  the  ocean  may 
make  a  person  on  the  other  side  hear  what  is  said  on  this  side ;"  and  "The  ethereal 
body  of  a  man  may  know  what  another  man  thinks  at  a  distance  of  100  miles  and 
more." — Paracelsus. 

452 


LONG-DISTANCE  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE  453 


Method. 

The  following  letter  was  sent  out  to  "sensitives"  who  had  signified 
their  interest  and  desire  to  aid  in  the  investigation : 

Leland  Stanford  Junior  University 

Department  of  Psychology, 
Division  of  Psychical  Research. 

Stanford  University,  Calif.,  January  1914. 
A  personal  note  to  the  sensitive : 

The  accompanying  instructions  for  an  experiment  in  Long-Distance  Thought- 
Transference  will  seem  upon  the  first  reading  rather  complicated.  A  second  read- 
ing, together  with  a  little  study  and  a  few  trials  by  yourself,  will,  I  trust,  smooth 
things  out. 

You  will  understand  that  at  8  o'clock  p.m.,  to  the  second,  and  at  each  5- 
minute  interval  after,  the  period  of  impression  is  to  begin ;  it  should  not  last  over 
one  minute,  and  it  may  be  shorter  if  you  get  a  reliable  impression  in  less  time.  Then 
you  record  a  card  (like  R5H  for  Red  five  of  hearts)  in  its  proper  place  in  the 
Record  Sheet ;  then  you  write  out  your  introspections  on  this  single  experiment. 
Be  careful  not  to  let  the  writing  of  introspections  break  into  the  period  of  im- 
pression, because  that  period  corresponds  to  the  time  (one  minute)  during  which 
the  experimenter  here  (in  Palo  Alto)  is  holding  the  card  pertinent  to  that  ex- 
periment. 

Common  playing-cards  are  used ;  the  face  or  court  cards  are  discarded,  leav- 
ing the  40  cards  with  spots  I  to  10. 

After  the  card  is  drawn  by  chance  for  the  experiment,  the  experimenter  may 
look  at  it  or  not,  as  controlled  by  the  odd  numbers  of  a  die  which  he  shakes  in  a 
dice-box.  Thus  some  opportunity  will  be  given  for  clairvoyance.  The  experi- 
menter keeps  a  record  of  the  card,  whether  it  was  entertained  in  his  mind,  in  what 
kind  of  imagery  it  was  entertained  (visual  if  like  a  picture  seen,  auditory  if  like 
a  name  heard,  kinesthetic  if  like  an  impulse  of  the  vocal  organs  to  speak  the  name 
of  the  card).     In  some  definite  cases  the  imagery  of  the  card  will  be  mixed. 

Let  the  experimentation  begin  February  2d,  and  continue  daily  for  all  school 
days  (thus  omitting  Saturday  and  Sunday)  until  and  including  February  13th, 
when,  at  the  rate  of  ten  each  evening  (a  complete  series)  the  whole  set  of  100  ex- 
periments will  be  complete.  Since  others  are  also  taking  the  experiments,  in  San 
Francisco,  in  Healdsburg,  in  Richmond,  etc.,  kindly  permit  nothing  except  the 
greatest  necessity  to  break  the  appintments. 

Before  experimentation  begins  each  evening,  record  in  the  last  column  on  the 
Time  Chart  the  number  of  seconds  your  watch  is  fast  or  slow :  that  will  be  the 
point  at  which,  for  the  evening,  your  period  of  impression  will  begin ;  "time"  must 
be  got  each  day,  and  the  watch  set  to  the  nearest  minute.  (In  setting  the  watch 
keep  the  minute-hand  with  the  second-hand,  so  that  when  the  second-hand  points 
to  60  the  minute-hand  will  be  precisely  over  the  minute  mark ;  then  you  will  not 
be  in  danger  of  taking  the  wrong  minute  for  the  impression.)     Keep  a  record  of 


454  APPENDIX   B 

all  changes  in  regulating  your  watch,  etc.,  as  you  are  instructed  on  the  sample  Time 
Record. 

Records  may  be  made  throughout  in  pencil.  At  each  sitting  the  state  of  the 
health  and  mind  should  be  recorded  opposite  the  date,  on  the  Record  Sheet. 

Your  interest  in  scientific  investigation  is  attested  by  your  willingness  to  take 
part  in  this  experimentation,  and  you  may  be  assured  that  your  results,  with  those 
of  others,  will  help  to  determine  something  in  regard  to  unrecognized  mental  (?) 
powers. 

Very  truly  yours, 

John  E.  Coover, 
Fellow  in  Psychical  Research. 

Accompanying  the  letter  were  sent  five  inclosures : 

1.  Instructions  for  an  experiment  in  Long-Distance  Thought-Transference. 

2.  Sample  Time  Record. 

3.  Time  Record  blank. 
4    Record  Sheet. 

5.  Sheets  for  introspections. 

/.  Instructions  for  an  experiment  in  Long-Distance  Thought-Transference. 

Precisely  at  8  o'clock  sit  quietly  and  comfortably  at  a  table  or  with  a  writing 
pad,  clear  the  mind  of  all  impressions  and  trains  of  thought,  and  settle  down  to  a 
quiescent  state  alert  only  for  the  impression  of  some  playing-card  (with  spots  from 
1  to  10).     Use  from  a  quarter  to  one  minue  in  getting  this  impression. 

Record  the  impression  in  the  first  space  in  the  first  column  of  the  Record 
Sheet  (it  is  the  first  experiment  in  the  first  series  of  ten)  by  color,  number,  and 
suit,  (as,  for  the  ten  of  hearts,  R10H).  Keep  this  record  out  of  sight,  hence- 
forth, so  as  not  to  be  influenced  unconsciously  by  it ;  bring  it  into  view  only  when 
you  have  to  record  another  impression  or  guess.  To  do  this  you  can  keep  it  cov- 
ered with  the  sheets  for  introspections. 

Every  experiment  will  be  represented  by  a  line  on  the  Sheets  for  Introspec- 
tions. The  introspection  is  a  description  of  your  impression,  and  what  you  feel  it 
to  be  worth;  e.  g..  the  columns  are  headed  1,  2,  a,  b,  c,  d,  3,  a,  b,  which  are  to  be 
filled  out  on  the  appropriate  line  as  follows : 

1.  Was  the  mind  in  a  receptive  mood  during  the  interval  of  impression? 
2.    a.  What  kind  of  an  impression  was  it:    Visual  (like  a  picture  seen),  aud- 
itory (as  hearing  a  voice  speak  the  name  of  the  card),  or  kinaesthetic 
(impulse   for   the   vocal   organs   to   go   through   the   motions   of  pro- 
nouncing the  name  of  the  card)  ? 

b.  How  vivid  was  the  impression?     (Grade  A  for  high,  D  for  low,  B  and 

C  for  intermediate  grades). 

c.  Did  the  impression  come 

(1)  At  the  beginning,  middle,  or  end  of  the  period? 

(2)  Slowly  or  quickly? 

(3)  Was  it  persistent  or  intermittent? 


LONG-DISTANCE  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE  455 

d.  Record  by  initial  where  the  picture  or  voice  constituting  the  impression 
(if  it  is  not  merely  an  impulse  to  speak  the  name  of  the  card)  seems 
to  be  located  (i.  e.,  if  in  front  about  reading  distance,  record :  f.  I  ft.) 
using  the  terms,  front  back,  right,  left.  (This  you  note  applies  to 
visual  and  auditory  impressions.  The  impulse  to  speak  the  name  of 
the  card  is,  of  course,  an  impression  located  in  the  throat  and  mouth). 
3.  a.  What  do  you  feel  that  this  impression  is  worth?  How  much  better 
chance  than  a  pure  guess  do  you  feel  it  has  of  being  right?  (Grade 
A  for  high,  D  for  low,  etc.) 

b.  If  the  grade  is  A  or  B,  note  briefly  just  why  it  seems  so  much  better 
than  others. 

The  introspections  are  to  be  written  each  time  just  after  the  card  is  recorded 
— use  initials  (as,  b.  for  beginning).  Practice  by  yourself  for  a  few  times  before 
the  experiments  begin  will  make  the  matter  easy  for  you.  Anything  that  occurs 
to  you  as  being  important  for  which  there  is  no  provision  on  the  sheets,  kindly  note 
on  other  paper,  keeping  the  number  of  the  experiment  and  of  the  series. 

At  five  minutes  after  8  o'clock  the  interval  begins  for  another  experiment ; 
and  thereafter  every  five  minutes,  until  10  are  completed  (a  full  series).  The 
first  evening  only  the  first  series  will  be  done ;  on  the  second  evening  the  second 
series  of  ten  will  be  performed,  etc.  (A  series  on  the  Record  Sheet  is  numbered 
at  the  top ;  the  single  experiments  at  the  side.  On  the  sheets  for  introspections 
both  series  and  experiments  are  numbered  at  the  side.)  (Always  be  sure  in  writ- 
ing introspections  that  your  experiment  number  corresponds  with  that  in  your 
Record  Sheet.) 

After  the  impression  period  of  not  over  a  minute  a  card  must  be  recorded, 
even  if  no  impression  was  received;  in  this  case  no  entries  need  be  made  in  col- 
umns 2,  a,  b,  c,  d,  of  the  Sheet  for  Introspections,  but  in  .?,  a,  b,  record  "pure 
guess." 

Put  your  name  on  each  sheet  of  paper  you  use  as  a  record. 

Return  all  records  and  instructions  after  the  experimentation  is  completed. 

2.  Sample  Time  Record. 

February,  1914. 
Period  of  Impression 

Begins 
20  sec.  after   the   min. 
15  sec.  before  the  min. 
30  sec.  after  the  min. 

*The  time  when  the  "time"  is  taken  may  be  12  or  5  or  any  regular  hour  when 
telegraphic  time  is  received  at  the  telegraphic  instrument  (at  Western  Union  Of- 
fice) or  is  sounded  by  a  municipal  gong.  (Here  in  Palo  Alto  the  time  is  sounded 
by  the  first  of  three  taps  of  a  gong — heard  all  over  town — at  the  hours  of  8,  12, 
and  5). 

In  case  one  must  resort  to  a  clock  controlled  by  telegraphic  time,  he  should 
ascertain  when  the  clock  is  automatically  set,  how  much  in  error  it  is  possible 
for  it  to  be,  satisfy  himself  by  inquiry  that  he  can  get  true  time  from  it,  and  take 
time  regularly  at  his  most  convenient  hour,  every  day  of  experimentation. 


Date 

Hour  Time 
Compared* 

T 

me  of  Watch 

Watch  set 

to 

2 

12 

12-  3-20 

12-00-20 

3 

12 

12-  1-45 

1 1 -59-45 

4 

12 

11-58-30 

12-00-30 

456 


APPENDIX    B 


It  is  obvious  that  the  Time  Record  will  establish  the  fact  of  coincidence  for 
the  subject's  and  experimenter's  experimental  periods,  and  will  indicate  what  the 
extent  of  error  may  be.  The  record  of  the  running  of  the  watch  is  important. 
If  the  watch  is  regulated  faster  or  slower,  that  fact  should  be  recorded  on  the 
lower  part  of  the  Time  Record  Sheet,  together  with  the  date,  hour,  and  direction 
of  regulation   (as  provided  on  the  Sheet). 

It  would  be  advisable  to  take  time  regularly  several  days  before  the  experi- 
ments begin,  and  regulate  the  watch  to  reasonable  accuracy ;  then  refrain  from 
regulation  during  the  weeks  of  experimentation. 


j.  Time  Record  Blank. 


February,   1914. 


Date 

Hour  Time 
Compared 

Time  of  watch 

Watch  set  to 

Period   of   impression 

begins  (according  to 

your  own  time) 

3 

4 

5 
6 

9 

10 

11 

12 

!3 

Watch  Was  Regulated. 


Date 

Hour 

Faster  or  slower 

LONG-DISTANCE  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 


457 


4.  Record  Sheet. 

Use   initials,   and   record    (1)    color,    (2)    number,    (3)    suit;    as,   B3S   for   "Black 

Three  of  Spades." 


Name. 


1.  Date Condition 6.  Date Condition. 

2.  Date Condition 7.  Date Condition . 

3.  Date Condition 8.  Date Condition. 

4.  Date Condition 9.  Date Condition . 

5.  Date Condition 10.  Date Condition . 


1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

I 

3 

4 

5 
6 

7 

8 

9 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

3 
4 

5 
6 

8 

9 
10 

458 


APPENDIX   B 
5.  Sheets  for  Introspections. 


Series 

Experi- 
ments 

1 

2 

3 

0 

6 

c 

d 

a 

b 

1 

1 
2 
3 

4 
5 
6 

7 
8 

9 
10 
1 
2 
3 

2 

Results. 

Three  reagents  contributed  results.  The  first,  who  lived  in  Healds- 
burg,  about  90  miles  from  the  experimenter's  position,  faithfully  carried 
out  the  complete  program,  sitting  an  hour  on  each  of  the  appointed  even- 
ings, and  sent  in  the  results  of  100  experiments,  with  introspections. 
The  second,  who  lived  in  the  city  of  San  Francisco,  27  miles  away,  sent 
in  results  of  36  experiments,  and  the  third,  who  lived  in  Richmond,  35 
miles  away,  sent  in  results  of  13  experiments. 

The  results  of  the  one  complete  set  are  given  below: 


Card  Not  Imaged 
Card  Color    No.     Suit      W    Total 
R  Cases    ...  5        23        10        13        19        46 
Reduced*    .  .  5        25         11         14        20        50 
Dev +375     o        +6        +1        -2 


Card  Imaged 

Card  Color    No.     Suit  W  Total 

o        32        2        15  21        54 

o        30        2        14  19        50 

-125   +5      -3        +1  -3 


The  deviations  in  the  last  line  are  comparable  with  those  in  Table 


XIV.2 


*Both  sides  of  the  table  reduced  to  even  sets  of  50  experiments. 
2  Supra,  pp.  57  ff. 


LONG-DISTANCE  THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE  459 

The  results  in  aggregate  for  the  three  reagents  follow : 

Card  Not  Imaged  Card  Imaged 

Card  Color    No.     Suit      W    Total  Card  Color    No.     Suit  W  Total 

R   Cases    ...  5        36        12        19        26        67  o        47        5        23  33        82 

%    746   537      17-8     28.4     38.8  o        57.4     6.1     28.0  40.2 

Dev +4.96   +3.7     +7.8     +3.4     -6.2  -2.5     +7.4   -3.9     +3-0  -48 

Both  sides  of  table  combined : 

R   Cases    5        83      17  42        59      149 

%     .' 3-35    557    «4  28-2     39-6 

Dev +0.85   +5.7    +1.4  +3.2     -5.4 

Limit   of  Chance   Dev +5.00+17.    +10.  +15.  -17. 

It  will  be  noted  that  all  complete  hits  (5 )  occurred  in  the  "Card  Not 
Imaged"  experiments  and  that  on  the  same  side  of  the  table  Number 
has  the  larger  deviation  (in  the  complete  set)  and  Suit  also  (in  the  ag- 
gregate results).  Therefore,  the  positive  deviations  point  more  strongly 
toward  lucidity  than  toward  thought-transference,  in  case  they  are  to  be 
considered  of  any  weight.  This  is  doubtful,  however,  since  the  devia- 
tions of  all  tables  are  exceeded  by  both  inductive  and  theoretical  chance 
deviations.  When  the  two  sides  of  the  table  are  aggregated,  as  in  the 
last  table,  in  order  to  decrease  the  chance  deviations  by  increasing  the 
number  of  total  cases,  we  find  that  the  positive  deviations  decrease  and 
that  they  do  not  exceed  a  third  of  the  limit  of  chance  deviations ;  about 
16%  of  the  positive  chance  deviations  of  a  large  number  of  sets  would 
be  found  to  be  larger. 

The  Introspections  show  that  judgments  were  based  upon  imagery 
in  three  modes,  visual,  auditory,  and  kinaesthetic,  and  that  it  was  usually 
in  indifferent  intensity.  There  were  a  few  highly  graded  judgments, 
however,  in  the  completed  set :  Series  6,  Experiment  10,  in  which  the 
impression  came  vividly  at  the  end  of  the  interval  in  both  auditory  and 
visual  forms;  9:1  and  9:10,  in  which  it  came  in  dual  mode,  also, 
quickly  and  vividly.  These  factors  of  certainty  are  among  those  pointed 
out  by  both  the  normal  reagents  and  the  psychics,  in  the  larger  series  of 
experiments.  These  three  judgments  were  right  in  two  colors  and  one 
suit  only.  Of  the  five  complete  hits,  three  were  given  the  lowest  grade, 
and  two  were  pure  guesses.  The  psychic  suggested  several  reasons  why 
her  series  might  not  be  satisfactory;  (1 )  Time  was  not  exact;  (2)  She 
was  unfamiliar  with  playing-cards;  (3)  The  time  of  impression  (one 
minute)  seemed  to  her  rather  short;  (4)  Hitherto  messages  had  come  to 
her  simply  as  "mental  impressions,"  not  as  visual  or  auditory  imagery. 


460  APPENDIX    B 

Yet.  if  the  time  was  sufficiently  accurate  to  insure  coincidence  of  a  sub- 
stantial proportion  of  the  interval  of  impression,  as  it  seems  to  have 
been,  the  set  should  have  offered  a  fair  opportunity  for  thought-transfer- 
ence to  show  itself.  One  of  the  reagent's  many  experiences  suggests 
that  the  distance,  at  least,  need  not  have  been  prohibitive :  in  the  year 
1903  her  husband  left  for  Denver,  about  960  miles  distant,  to  be  gone 
several  weeks,  leaving  her  alone  in  the  house.  One  night,  after  she  had 
retired  very  early  and  had  fallen  asleep,  she  was  aroused  by  hearing,  as 
she  thought,  her  husband's  voice  calling  her  name  from  the  adjoining 
room.  She  replied,  asking  what  he  wished,  and  received  plainly  the  re- 
ply "I  am  all  right."  Then  she  realized  that  she  was  alone,  heard  the 
clock  strike  nine,  and  quickly  fell  to  sleep  again.  The  next  day  the 
papers  reported  the  collapse  of  a  great  tent,  in  which  she  knew  he  would 
be,  and  the  miraculous  escape  of  many  persons  from  death.  She  then 
understood  the  message.  Upon  his  return  he  inquired  if  she  got  his  mes- 
sage sent  on  the  given  night  at  ten  o'clock,  which,  with  allowance  for 
difference  in  longitude,  was  considered  coincident  with  her  experience. 
This  method  of  experiment  for  long-distance  thought-transference 
offers  opportunity  for  proof  of  the  objective  existence  of  the  phenom- 
enon, and,  also,  because  of  the  elimination  of  spatial  difficulties,  for  proof 
of  thought-transference  between  persons  who  consider  each  other  es- 
pecially en  rapport. 


APPENIDIX  C. 


GROUNDS  FOR  SCIENTIFIC  CAUTION  IN  THE 

ACCEPTANCE  OF  THE  "PROOF"  OF 

THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE. 

For  the  benefit  of  the  reader  who  has  felt  more  or  less  dissatisfac- 
tion with  the  writer's  reserve  in  his  treatment  of  the  telepathic  hypothe- 
sis, or  has  read  the  quotations  in  the  introduction  to  Part  1 1  with  im- 
patience, it  has  been  thought  advisable  to  present  here  in  the  Appendix 
some  of  the  more  specific  grounds  for  scientific  caution ;  he  will  then  be 
in  a  position  himself  to  exercise  his  own  judgment  as  to  whether  scien- 
tific caution  in  the  acceptance  of  thought-transference  as  a  fact  is  justi- 
fied by  a  bit  of  the  history  of  its  investigation. 

From  the  time  of  the  "First  Report  on  Thought-Reading"  2  by  the 
Committee  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  prominent  psychical 
researchers,  including  the  members  of  the  Committee,  have  from  time 
to  time  counseled  caution  in  the  acceptance  of  the  current  evidence  as 
proof  of  thought-transference. 

In  that  "First  Report"  communicated  by  Barrett,  Gurney,  and 
Myers,  the  Committee  said : 

Hesitation  in  accepting  any  facts  so  novel,  and,  in  many  ways,  suspicious,  as 
mind-reading,  is,  of  course,  perfectly  justifiable;  and  we  are  prepared  to  expect 
much  criticism  and  prolonged  experiment,  before  any  generalization  from  the  facts 
can  meet  with  wide  acceptance.3 

In  1886  Gurney  wrote: 

The  part  of  the  map  that  science  leaves  blank,  as  terra  incognita,  is  the  very 
one  which  amateur  geographers  will  fill  in  according  to  their  fancy,  or  on  the  re- 
ports of  uncritical  and  untrustworthy  explorers.  The  confidence  of  ignorance  is 
always  pretty  accurately  adjusted  to  the  confidence  of  knowledge.  Whenever  the 
expert  can  put  his  foot  down,  and  assert  or  deny  with  assurance,  the  uninstructed 
instinctively  bow  to  him.  He  fearlessly  asserts,  for  instance,  that  the  law  of  the 
conservation  of  energy  cannot  be  broken ;  the  world  believes  him,  and  the  inventors 
of  perpetual-motion  machines  gradually  die  off.     But  suppose  the  question  is  of  pos- 


1  Supra,  pp.  3  ff. 

2  July  17,  1882.     Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  1882,  I  :  13  ff. 

3  Op.  cit.,  p.  17. 

461 


462  APPENDIX   C 

sible  relations  of  human  beings  to  inanimate  things  or  to  one  another,  new  modes  of 
influence,  new  forms  of  sensitiveness.  Here  responsible  science  can  give  no  confident 
denial ;  here,  therefore,  irresponsible  speculation  finds  its  chance.  It  has,  no  doubt,  mod- 
ified its  language  under  the  influence  of  half  a  century  of  brilliant  physical  discov- 
ery. .  .  .  Speculation  here  is  not  only  easy ;  it  is,  unfortunately,  also  attractive. 
The  more  obscure  phenomena  and  the  more  doubtful  assumptions  are  just  those 
on  which  the  popular  mind  most  readily  fastens ;  and  the  popular  tongue  rejoices 
in  terms  of  the  biggest  and  vaguest  connotation.  Something  also  must  be  set  down 
to  a  natural  reaction.  Even  persons  whose  interest  has  been  earnest  and  intelligent 
have  found  scientific  morale  hard  to  preserve,  in  departments  surrendered  by  a 
long-standing  convention  to  unscientific  treatment.  Thus,  in  their  practice,  they 
have  come  to  acquiesce  in  that  surrender,  and  have  dispensed  with  habits  of  cau- 
tion for  which  no  one  was  likely  to  give  them  credit ;  while  in  their  polemic  they 
have  as  much  resented  the  stringent  demands  for  evidence,  in  which  their  oppon- 
ents have  been  right,  as  the  refusal  to  look  at  it  when  it  is  there,  in  which  their 
opponents  have  been  wrong,     (pp.  4-5). 

[The  serious  student  of  psychical  phenomena]  finds  himself  more  or  less  in 
contact  with  advocates  of  new  departments  who  ignore  the  weight  of  the  presump- 
tion against  them — who  fail  to  see  that  it  is  from  the  recognized  departments  that 
the  standard  of  evidence  must  be  drawn,  and  that  if  speculation  is  to  make  good 
its  right  to  outrun  science,  it  will  certainly  not  be  by  impatience  of  scientific 
canons,     (p.  6). 

Telepathy  as  a  system  of  facts  is  what  we  have  to  study.  Discussion  of  the 
nature  of  the  novel  faculty  in  itself,  and  apart  from  particular  results,  will  be  as 
far  as  possible  avoided.  That,  if  it  exists,  it  has  important  relations  to  various 
very  fundamental  problems — metaphysical,  psychological,  possibly  even  physical — 
we  can  scarcely  doubt.  So  far  from  the  scientific  study  of  man  being  a  region 
whose  boundaries  are  pretty  well  mapped  out,  and  which  only  requires  to  be  filled 
in  with  further  detail  by  physiologists  and  psychologists,  we  may  come  to  perceive 
that  we  are  standing  only  on  the  threshold  of  a  vast  terra  incognita,  which  must 
be  humbly  explored  before  we  can  even  guess  at  its  true  extent,  or  appreciate  its 
relation  to  the  more  familiar  realms  of  knowledge.  But  such  distant  visions  Tiad 
better  not  be  lingered  over.  Before  the  philosophical  aspects  of  the  subject  can 
be  profitably  studied,  its  position  as  a  real  department  of  knowledge  must  be  amply 
vindicated.  This  can  only  be  done  by  a  wide  survey  of  evidence;  the  character 
of  the  present  work  will  therefore  be  mainly  evidential,     (pp.  7-8). * 

Lodge,  in  1909,  said : 

An  attitude  of  keen  and  critical  inquiry  must  continually  be  maintained,  and 
in  that  sense  any  amount  of  scepticism  is  not  only  legitimate  but  necessary.5 

It  is  clear  that  the  prominent  investigators  in  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research  who  have  been  won  over  to  the  telepathic  hypothesis 
appreciated  to  the  full  the  general  methods  of  science  and  yet  regarded 


4  Gurney,   Myers,  and   Podmore :    Phantasms  of  the  Living,  vol.   I.     London, 
1886. 

5  Lodge  :    Thought-Transference.     Forum,   1909,  41 :62. 


GROUNDS  FOR  SCIENTIFIC  CAUTION  463 

the  evidence  for  thought-transference  as  fulfilling  the  scientific  criteria 
of  proof.  It  is  true  that  in  agreement  with  the  first  Presidential  Address 
delivered  before  the  Society  by  Professor  Sidgwick,  on  July  17,  1882, 
they  have  been  at  no  time  content  with  evidence  of  the  best  quality,  but 
have  always  desired  "a  great  deal  more  of  it,"  since  "the  educated 
world,  including  many  who  have  given  much  time  and  thought  to  this 
subject,  are  not  yet  convinced."  "What  I  mean  by  sufficient  evidence/' 
said  Professor  Sidgwick,  "is  evidence  that  will  convince  the  scientific 
world."  6 

How  far  the  scientific  world  is  from  being  convinced  is  indicated 
by  the  fact  that  scientific  men  in  general  give  the  subject  no  attention 
in  either  their  professional  lecturing  or  their  professional  writing;  even 
those  scientific  men  into  whose  peculiar  field  of  work  telepathic  phenom- 
ena properly  fall  either  do  not  mention  the  subject  at  all  in  their  text- 
books, or  do  so  only  to  illustrate  the  factors  involved  in  illusion  or  de- 
lusion. The  writer  recalls  no  text-book  or  other  professional  psycho- 
logical literature  (outside  of  M'Dougall's  "Body  and  Mind,"  London, 
2d  ed.,  1913,  p.  349)  which  refers  to  thought-transference  as  a  recog- 
nized phenomenon.  It  is  evident  that  either  scientific  men  are  over- 
cautious, or  the  evidence  is  faulty. 

Let  us  examine  a  few  characteristics  of  the  evidence. 

The  Creery  Experiments. 

In  the  "Phantasms  of  the  Living"  Edmund  Gurney  wrote: 

I  have  dwelt  at  some  length  on  our  series  of  trials  with  the  members  of  the 
Creery  family,  as  it  is  to  those  trials  that  we  owe  our  own  conviction  of  the  pos- 
sibility of  genuine  thought-transference  between  persons  in  a  normal  state.7 

In  the  same  place  (p.  25)  the  able  authors  present  a  "Table  Show- 
ing the  Success  Obtained  when  the  Selected  Object  was  Known  to  One 
or  More  of  the  Investigating  Committee  Only,"  in  which  are  tabulated 
the  trials  made  with  the  Creery  sisters  (Mary,  Alice,  Emily,  and  Maud) 
and  a  young  maid-servant  (Jane  Dean),  about  twenty  years  of  age,  of 
the  Creery  household,  at  their  home,  in  Buxton,  at  Cambridge,  or  in 
Dublin.  The  aggregate  is  497  trials,  the  most  probable  number  of  suc- 
cesses is  27,  the  actual  number  of  successes  is,  for  the  first  guess  95,  for 
the  second  45,  for  either  first  or  second  140.  The  "probability  of  obtain- 
ing by  mere  chance  the  amount  of  success  which  the  first  guesses  gave," 


6  Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  1882,  I  :  9. 

7  Vol.  I,  p.  29. 


464  APPENDIX   C 

is  recorded  as  .cx>o,ooo,ooo,ooo,ooo,ooo,ooo,cx)o,oi.  The  eminent  mathe- 
matician, Mr.  F.  Y.  Edgeworth,  who  made  the  final  calculations  of  prob- 
ability said : 

These  figures  more  impressively  than  any  words  proclaim  the  certainty  that 
the  recorded  observations  must  have  resulted  either  from  collusion  on  the  part  of 
those  concerned  (the  hypothesis  of  illusion  being  excluded  by  the  simplicity  of 
the  experiments)  or  from  thought-transference  of  the  sort  which  the  investigators 
vindicate.8 

The  authors  point  out  that  collusion  between  the  members  of  the 
family  will  not  account  for  the  success  when  the  objects  guessed  were 
known  only  to  the  investigators  (at  various  times,  Professor  Barrett, 
Professor  and  Mrs.  Sidgwick,  Professor  Balfour  Stewart,  Professor  Al- 
fred Hopkinson,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  F.  W.  H.  Myers,  and  Edmund  Gurney), 
and  not  to  any  member  of  the  family;9  and  that,  judging  from  the  re- 
sults, the  conditions  for  success  seemed  to  be  no  better  when  one  or 
more  members  of  the  family  also  knew  the  object,  name,  number,  or 
card  to  be  guessed;  unless  it  were  Rev.  Creery,  whose  integrity  was 
above  question,  when  they  seemed  decidedly  better.10 

The  conditions  of  experiment  may  be  seen  from  the  following  quo- 
tations from  the  published  record: 

The  second  series  of  experiments  (made  on  April  13,  l882)  which  we  venture 
to  think  are  unexceptionable,  were  made  by  Mr.  Myers  and  Mr.  Gurney,  together 
with  two  ladies  who  were  entire  strangers  to  the  family.  None  of  the  family  knew 
what  we  had  selected,  the  type  of  thing  being  told  only  to  the  child  chosen  to 
guess.  The  experimenters  took  every  precaution  in  order  that  no  indication,  how- 
ever slight,  should  reach  the  child.  She  was  recalled  by  one  of  the  experimenters 
and  stood  near  the  door  with  d'owncast  eyes.  In  this  way  the  following  results 
were  obtained.11 

Out  of  14  guesses  on  playing-cards,  9  complete  guesses  were  made 
in  the  first  guess  (sometimes  a  second  or  third  guess  was  allowed). 

Another  quotation  from  the  record  by  Professor  Balfour  Stewart: 

After  the  first  visit,  one  of  my  colleagues  at  Owens  College  remarked  that  it 
would  be  more  conclusive  if  the  thought-reader,  instead  of  turning  her  face  to  the 
company,  turned  her  face  to  the  wall ;  and  that  was  accordingly  done  on  the  sec- 
ond occasion.  The  percentage  of  success  was  about  as  large  as  in  the  first  instance. 
In  one  case,  while  the  thought-reader  remained  behind  the  door,  a  card  was  chosen. 


8  Op.  cit.,  p.  26. 

9  Op.  cit.,  pp.  22-3. 

10  Op.  cit.,  pp.  26-7. 

11  Proceedings  S.  P.  R..  1882,  1 :22. 


GROUNDS  FOR  SCIENTIFIC  CAUTION  465 

I  chose  the  "ace  of  hearts,"  and  the  paper  on  which  it  was  written  down  was 
handed  round  to  the  company.  The  thought-reader  in  a  few  moments  called  out, 
"Ace  of  hearts  I" 

These  are  all  the  experiments  that  I  have  to  bring  before  you.  While  they 
cannot  stand  upon  the  same  footing  as  those  of  Professor  Barrett  and  his  col- 
leagues, they  may  be  considered,  I  think,  as  corroborative  of  the  experiments  of 
these  gentlemen.  At  any  rate,  if  they  are  objected  to,  it  will  be  necessary  for  our 
opponents  to  extend  somewhat  the  area  of  untrustworthiness.  I  have  no  doubt  when 
this  operation  is  done  again  and  again  the  objectors  will  get  tired  of  it,  and  the 
laugh  will  then  be  turned  against  themselves.12 

In  the  Committee's  Second  Report,  they  say : 

We  fully  agree  with  our  critics  that  both  conscious  and  unconscious  deception 
must  be  most  carefully  guarded  against  in  all  these  cases.  We  shall  continue  to" 
take  all  the  precautions  which  experience  suggests,  and  clearly  to  indicate  in  our 
Reports  that  we  have  taken  them.13 

And  concerning  the  Creery  experiments,  Gurney  later  wrote : 

This  condition  [when  members  of  the  investigating  committee  alone  were 
agents]  clearly  makes  it  idle  to  represent  the  means  by  which  the  transferences 
took  place  as  simply  a  trick  which  the  members  of  the  investigating  committee 
failed  to  detect.  The  trick,  if  trick  there  was,  must  have  been  one  in  which  they, 
or  one  of  them,  actively  shared ;  the  only  alternative  to  collusion  on  their  part 
being  some  piece  of  carelessness  amounting  almost  to  idiocy — such  as  uttering  the 
required  word  aloud,  or  leaving  the  selected  card  exposed  on  the  table.14 

In  the  Appendix  to  the  First  Report,  Professor  Barrett  said: 

Only  by  wide  and  searching  inquiry  of  this  kind  can  any  conception  be 
formed  of  the  pitfalls  which  beset  the  inquirer,  arising  mainly  either  from  uncon- 
scious, involuntary  actions,  or  from  the  extraordinary  capacity  there  is  in  human 
nature  for  deception,  often  seemingly  innocent,  at  other  times  resorted  to  for  the 
sake  of  gaining  notoriety.  I  confess  I  do  not  know  how  our  vigilance  would  be 
increased,  or  our  results  become  more  trustworthy,  by  ability  to  diagnose  any  par- 
ticular case,  when  experience  has  taught  us  to  exercise  habitual  caution  in  all  cases. 
The  inquiry  must  ultimately  resolve  itself  into  a  question  of  evidence,  and  demands 
the  exercise  of  the  faculty  of  careful  observation,  which  a  physicist  is  as  likely  to 
possess  as  a  physiologist.15 

Certain  peculiarities  in  the  experimental  results  did  not  pass  un- 
noticed and  were  seized  upon  to  support  the  statistical  evidence  or  to 
throw  light  upon  the  nature  of  the  thought-transference  processes. 


12  Op  cit.,  p.  38. 

13  Op.  cit.,  p.  71. 

14  Phantasms  of  the  Living,  vol.  I,  p.  25. 

15  Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  1  :  47. 


466  APPENDIX    C 

i.  The  proportion  of  correct  guesses  was  not  materially  increased 
when  members  of  the  family  were  included  among  the  agents;  this  was 
regarded  as  evidence  that  code  was  not  used. 

A  large  number  of  trials  were  also  made  in  which  the  group  of  agents  in- 
cluded one  or  more  of  the  Creery  family ;  and  as  bearing  on  the  hypothesis  of  an 
ingenious  family  trick,  it  is  worth  noting  that — except  where  Mr.  Creery  himself 
was  included — the  percentage  of  successes  was,  as  a  rule,  not  appreciably  higher 
under  these  conditions  than  when  the  Committee  alone  were  in  the  secret.16 

2.  Correct  guesses  were  as  frequent  when  the  chances  against  suc- 
cess were  incalculable  as  when  they  were  greatly  less. 

In  many  trials,  such  as  the  guessing  of  fictitious  names,  made  up  by  us  on 
the  spur  of  the  moment,  the  chances  against  success  were,  of  course,  incalculable ; 
yet,  as  will  be  seen  by  the  following  record  taken  from  our  last  day's  experiment- 
ing, these  names  were  guessed  with  as  much  ease  as  cards,  where  the  chances 
against  success  were  far  less.17 

3.  Many  of  the  errors  were  approximate  guesses ;  some  part  of  the 
guess  being  correct,  the  guess  of  number  being  numerically  close,  or  suc- 
cessive guesses  approaching  correctness : 

One  further  evidential  point  should  be  noted.  Supposing  such  a  thing  as  a 
genuine  faculty  of  thought-transference  to  exist,  and  to  be  capable,  for  example,  of 
evoking  in  one  mind  the  idea  of  a  card  on  which  other  minds  are  concentrated,  we 
might  naturally  expect  that  the  card-pictures  conveyed  to  the  percipient  would 
present  various  degrees  of  distinctness,  and  that  there  would  be  a  considerable 
number  of  approximate  guesses,  as  they  might  be  given  by  a  person  who  was 
allowed  one  fleeting  glimpse  at  a  card  in  an  imperfect  light.  Such  a  person  might 
often  fail  to  name  the  card  correctly,  but  his  failures  would  be  apt  to  be  far  more 
nearly  right  than  those  of  another  person  who  was  simply  guessing  without  any 
sort  of  guidance.  This  expectation  was  abundantly  confirmed  in  our  experiments. 
Thus,  in  a  series  of  32  trials,  where  only  5  first  guesses  were  completely  right,  the 
suit  was  14  times  running  named  correctly  on  the  first  trial,  and  reiterated  on  the 
second.  Knave  was  very  frequently  guessed  as  King  and  vice  versa,  the  suit  being 
given  correctly.  The  number  of  pips  named  was  in  many  cases  only  one  off  the 
right  number,  this  sort  of  failure  being  specially  frequent  when  the  number  was 
over  six.  Again  the  answer  was  often  given,  as  it  were,  piecemeal — in  two  par- 
tially incorrect  guesses — the  pips  or  picture  being  rightly  given  at  the  first  attempt, 
and  the  suit  at  the  second ;  and  in  the  same  way  with  numbers  of  two  figures,  one 
of  them  would  appear  in  the  first  guess  and  the  other  in  the  second,     (pp.  27-8). 18 

4.  An  unaccountable  fluctuation  in  the  capacity  was  observed: 


16  Phantasms  of  the  Living,  p.  26. 

17  Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  1 :  24. 

18  Phantasms  of  the  Living,  vol.  I. 


GROUNDS  FOR  SCIENTIFIC  CAUTION  467 

The  fluctuations  in  successes  were  very  remarkable.  Thus  on  one  day,  Aug- 
ust 1st,  when  the  guesser  was  outside  the  closed  door,  twenty-seven  trials  with 
cards  gave  not  a  single  correct  result ;  merely  seven  partial  guesses,  as  eight  of 
diamonds  for  seven  of  diamonds.  Whereas  on  August  3d,  apparently  under  pre- 
cisely similar  conditions,  the  guesser  being  outside  the  closed  door  and  no  sound 
of  any  kind  permitted  within  the  room  where  we,  who  knew  the  card,  sat,  ten  trials 
gave  two  completely  right  and  two  almost  right ;  and  on  August  4th,  twenty-five 
trials  under  exactly  the  same  conditions  gave  two  completely  right  and  two  par- 
tially right,     (p.  72). 

Anxiety  to  secure  success  on  the  part  of  the  subject  is  nearly  always  fatal 
and  always  prejudicial,  hence  the  little  trepidation  that  exists  when  set  trials  are 
made,  or  trials  before  strangers,  tells  most  unfavorably,     (p.  73).10 

5.  A  regrettable  decline  in  the  capacity  prevented  a  continuation  of 
the  research  for  the  purpose  of  studying  the  laws  operative  in  the  phe- 
nomena. 

It  may  be  noted  that  the  power  of  these  (Creery)  children,  collectively  or 
separately,  gradually  diminished  during  these  months,  so  that  at  the  end  of  1882 
they  could  not  do,  under  the  easiest  conditions,  what  they  could  do  under  the  most 
stringent  in  1881.  This  gradual  decline  of  power  seemed  quite  independent  of  the 
tests  applied,  and  resembled  the  disappearance  of  a  transitory  pathological  condi- 
tion, being  the  very  opposite  of  what  might  have  been  expected  from  a  growing 
proficiency  in  code-communication.20 

It  may  perhaps  be  asked  of  us  why  we  did  not  exploiter  this  remarkable  fam- 
ily further.  It  was  certainly  our  intention  to  do  what  we  could  in  this  direction, 
and  by  degrees  to  procure  for  our  friends  an  opportunity  of  judging  for  them- 
selves. .  .  .  Had  the  faculty  of  whose  existence  we  assured  ourselves  continued  in 
full  force,  it  would  doubtless  have  been  possible  in  time  to  bring  the  phenomena 
under  the  notice  of  a  sufficient  number  of  painstaking  and  impartial  observers,  (p. 
29).  .  .  .  But  the  faculty  did  not  continue  in  full  force;  on  the  contrary,  the  av- 
erage of  successes  gradually  declined,  and  the  children  regretfully  acknowledged 
that  their  capacity  and  confidence  were  deserting  them.  The  decline  was  equally 
observed  even  in  the  trials  which  they  held  amongst  themselves ;  and  it  had  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  any  increased  stringency  in  the  precautions  adopted.  No  pre- 
cautions, indeed,  could  be  stricter  than  that  confinement  to  our  own  investigating 
group  of  the  knowledge  of  the  idea  to  be  transferred,  which  was,  from  the  very  first, 
a  condition  of  the  experiments  on  which  we  absolutely  relied.  The  fact  has  just 
to  be  accepted,  as  an  illustration  of  the  fleeting  character  which  seems  to  attach 
to  this  and  other  forms  of  abnormal  sensitiveness.  .  .  .  The  decline  set  in  with 
their  sense  that  the  experiments  had  become  matters  of  weighty  importance  to  us, 
and  of  somewhat  prolonged  strain  and  tediousness  to  them.     (p.  30) .21 

6.  The  phenomena  of  thought-transference  were  regarded  as  fairly 
common,  and  there  is  some  evidence  that  it  was  curiously  contagious: 


19  Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,    1  :  72-3. 

20  Op.  cit.,  I  :  171. 

21  Phantasms  of  the  Living,  vol.  I. 


4<38  appendix  c 

The  Rev.  A.  M.  Creery,  in  a  "Note  on  Thought-Reading,"  said: 

I  may  say  that  this  faculty  is  not  by  any  means  confined  to  members  of  one 
family ;  it  is  much  more  general  than  we  imagine.  To  verify  this  conclusion  I 
invited  two  of  a  neighbor's  children  to  join  us  in  our  experiments.  On  the  first 
evening  they  were  rather  diffident,  and  did  not  succeed ;  on  the  second  they  im- 
proved, and  on  the  third  evening  they  were  still  better.  Circumstances  prevented 
them  being  able  to  continue  their  visits  to  us,  but  I  saw  enough  to  make  me  feel 
perfectly  sure  that  had  they  persevered  they  would  have  been  quite  equal  to  our 
own  circle  in  the  faculty  of  thought-reading.22 

Never  before  had  such  strong  and  apparently  authentic  evidence 
been  presented  to  the  world  for  the  existence  of  thought-transference. 
The  research  was  cooperative ;  the  investigators  were  eminent  men ; 
responsibility  for  the  proper  conduct  of  experiments  was  distributed ; 
the  results  were  decisive  in  excluding  chance.  From  the  publication  of 
the  Committee's  First  Report  criticism  began  pouring  in  from  the  press. 
Much  of  it  was  worthless ;  some  of  it  doubtless  assisted  the  investigators 
in  improving  their  methods  of  experiment ;  but  none  of  it  shook  the  faith 
of  the  members  of  the  Committee  who  had  been  won  over  to  the  tele- 
pathic hypothesis  by  this  evidence.  Some  of  these  criticisms,  which  evi- 
dently charged  the  Society  with  unscientific  methods,  were  answered  in 
an  address  by  the  President  of  the  Society,  Professor  Sidgwick : 23 

We  admit,  of  course,  that  the  majority  of  scientific  experts  still  keep  aloof 
from  us,  and  that  the  agreement  of  experts  is  the  final  test  of  the  establishment  of 
truths ; — indeed  we  may  apply  to  the  scientific  world  what  an  eminent  statesman 
has  said  of  the  political  world,  that  the  main  duty  of  a  minority  is  to  try  to  turn 
itself  into  a  majority.  But  this  is  just  what  we  hope  to  do;  not  so  much  by  direct 
controversy,  as  by  patiently  and  persistently  endeavoring  to  apply  to  the  obscure 
matters  we  are  studying  methods  as  analogous  as  circumstances  allow  to  those  by 
which  scientific  progress  has  been  made  in  other  departments,     (p.  245). 

This,  then,  is  what  we  mean  by  a  scientific  spirit :  that  we  approach  the  sub- 
ject without  prepossessions,  but  with  a  single-minded  desire  to  bring  within  the 
realm  of  orderly  and  accepted  knowledge  what  now  appears  as  a  chaos  of  individual 
beliefs.  In  saying  that  our  methods  are  scientific  we  do  not  of  course  pretend  to 
possess  any  technical  knowledge  or  art,  needing  elaborate  training.  "Science,"  as 
an  eminent  naturalist  has  said,  "is  only  organized  common-sense" ;  and  on  ground 
so  very  new  as  most  of  that  is  on  which  we  are  trying  to  advance,  the  organiza- 
tion of  common-sense,  which  we  call  scientific  method,  must  necessarily  be  very 
rude  and  tentative.  Indeed,  the  value  to  us  of  the  scientific  experts  whom  we  are 
glad  to  count  among  our  number  depends  much  less  on  any  technical  knowledge 
or  skill  than  on  the  general  habit  of  mind — what  I  may  call  the  "higher  common- 
sense" — which  their  practice  of  scientific  investigation  has  given  to  them ;  somewhat 


22  Proceedings,  S.  P.  R.,  I  :43~4;    cf.  also,  supra,  p.  29. 
*»  Delivered  July  18,  1883. 


GROUNDS  FOR  SCIENTIFIC  CAUTION  469 

greater  readiness  and  completeness  in  seeing  considerations  and  adopting  measures 
which,  when  once  suggested,  are  not  only  intelligible,  but  even  obvious,  to  the 
common-sense  of  mankind  at  large,     (pp.  246-7). 

We  only  refuse  to  admit  them  [the  explanations  of  our  opponents]  where  we 
find  that  the  hypothesis  manifestly  will  not  fit  the  facts,     (p.  248). 

Before  coming  to  our  conclusion  as  to  thought-transference  we  considered 
carefully  the  arguments  brought  forward  for  regarding  cases  of  so-called  "thought- 
reading"  as  due  to  involuntary  indications  apprehended  through  the  ordinary 
senses ;  and  we  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  ordinary  experiments,  where  con- 
tact was  allowed,  could  be  explained  by  the  hypothesis  of  unconscious  sensibility 
to  involuntary  muscular  pressure.  Hence  we  have  always  attached  special  import- 
ance to  experiments  in  which  contact  was  excluded ;  with  regard  to  which  this  par- 
ticular hypothesis  is  clearly  out  of  court,     (p.  24s).24 

The  Creery  experiments  completed,  carefully  prepared  expositions 
of  the  research  were  published  by  the  Committee  in  the  Nineteenth  Cen- 
tury Magazine  25  and  in  the  "Phantasms  of  the  Living."  26  Both  publica- 
tions called  forth  serious  criticism.  In  the  succeeding  number  of  the 
Nineteenth  Century  Magazine,2''  appeared  "A  Note  on  'Thought-Read- 
ing' "  by  Horatio  Donkin,  in  which  the  critic  said : 

They  [the  Creery  cases]  differ  in  no  way  from  the  ordinary  platform  per- 
formances of  the  little  "clairvoyantes"  who  from  time  to  time  have  amused  us 
both  in  the  name  of  Second  Sight,  and  in  that  of  the  humbler  and  honester  one 
of  conjuring.  It  is  well  known  that  a  very  simple  code  of  signals  will  suffice  to 
produce  results  much  more  startling  than  those  we  are  discussing.  .  .  .  When  the 
clairvoyante  is  not  blindfolded  other  means  of  communication  of  course  are  pos- 
sible, and  in  any  case  auditory  signs  other  than  words  could  be  agreed  upon  quite 
unsuspected  by  the  audience  to  be  amused  or  deceived. 

We  have,  therefore,  an  intelligible  and  admitted  explanation  which  fully 
serves  to  cover  all  the  facts  in  question.  Such  things  are  constantly  done  by  col- 
lusion—it is  a  vera  causa.  It  would  be  illogical  to  substitute  for  this  a  perfectly 
gratuitous  hypothesis  and  an  unknown  agency,     (p.  132)- 

The  children  were  not  blindfolded,     (p.   132). 

In  most  of  the  experiments  there  is  no  mention  made  of  silence  being  pre- 
served,    (p.   133). 

The  mistake  made  by  the  servant  in  guessing  the  name  "  'Enry"  for  "Emily" 
is  obviously  significant,  and  an  excellent  example  of  an  "undesigned  coincidence." 
Surely  it  must  lead  almost  every  plain  mind  to  the  irresistible  conclusion  that  a 
mistaken  whisper  or  facial  gesture  played  some  part  in  the  phenomenon,     (p.  133). 

The  theory  of  collusion  is  moreover  strongly  countenanced  by  the  fact  of 
the  mediums  being  children,  who  are  always  ready  to  join  in  any  game  of  decep- 
tion;   and  by  the  association  with  them  of  the  servant-girl— a  valuable  fact,  put- 


s'4 Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  1882-83,  1 :  245-8. 
25  June  1882,  11:890-901. 
2|s  1886,  vol.  I,  pp.  20-31. 
2'  July  1882,  12 :  131-3- 


470  APPENDIX   C 

ting  out  of  court  the  assumption  of  any  inherited  special  quality  peculiar  to  the 
family,  as  an  explanation,  possibly  plausible  to  some  minds,  of  the  alleged  mar- 
vels,    (p.   133). 

The  authors,  indeed,  say  "though  generally  the  object  selected  was  shown  to 
the  members  of  the  family  present  in  the  room,  we  were  sometimes  entirely  alone." 
From  the  only  rational  point  of  view,  that  of  scientific  scepticism,  and  therefore 
with  total  disregard  of  the  personal  factor,  this  consideration  seems  in  no  way  to 
invalidate  the  line  of  comment  here  taken.  It  is  not  clear  to  how  many  of  the 
three  observers  the  pronoun  "we"  in  the  above  passage  refers ;  but,  at  any  rate, 
we  miss  entirely  in  the  paper  any  specific  quotation  of  results  obtained  in  this  lat- 
ter set  of  circumstances. 

But  even  if  this  evidence  had  been  forthcoming,  no  mere  ipse  dixit  on  such 
a  matter  could  for  one  moment  be  admitted.  Reason  would  require  us  to  enter- 
tain the  great  probability  of  mental  bias  in  some  at  least  of  the  observers,  or  to 
discredit  the  accuracy  of  their  memory,  rather  than  to  allow  that  anything  has 
been  adduced  in  this  account  of  what,  to  say  the  least,  must  be  called  superficially 
conducted  experiments,  to  warrant  a  recognition  of  any  novelty,  or,  by  conse- 
quence, to  stand  in  need  of  explanation  by  a  theory  of  "Brain-waves."28  (p. 
133  )-29 

Dr.  G.  Stanley  Hall  in  his  review  of  '"Phantasms  of  the  Living" 
pointed  out  that  in  spite  of  the  authors'  statement  to  the  effect  that  the 
decline  in  the  capacity  of  the  Creery  sisters  for  thought-transference 
"had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  any  increased  stringency  in  the  pre- 
cautions adopted,"  the  precautions  did  grow  more  stringent,  and  that 
there  were  facts  which  suggested  either  conscious  or  unconscious  fraud: 

That  the  precautions  did  grow  more  stringent  there  is  abundant  evidence. 
At  first  "all  silently  thought  the  name  of  the  thing  selected,"  after  it  had  been 
written  down  and  showed  to  the  rest  of  the  family.  "The  presence  of  the  father 
seemed  decidedly  to  increase  the  percentage  of  successes."  At  Cambridge,  where 
the  three  elder  sisters  were  isolated  from  their  family,  and  where  usually  none  of 
the  sisters  but  the  guesser  knew  the  .card  selected,  the  successes  were  less  numer- 
ous. Very  significant  is  the  series  of  thirty-two  experiments  where  the  sisters 
knew,  and  only  the  tops  of  their  heads  were  visible  to  the  guesser,  and  the  suit 
was  named  correctly  fourteen  times  running,  with  great  positiveness  and  reiteration, 
while  the  card  was  right  but  five  times.  From  twenty-seven  experiments  at  Dub- 
lin, with  the  other  sister  knowing,  the  committee  felt  justified  in  saying  that  the 
presence  and  assistance  of  the  sisters  made  no  appreciable  difference  in  the  result, 
while  at  Cambridge  only  eight  trials  without  and  seven  with  the  sisters  knowing 
are  given  as  the  basis  of  a  similar  inference.  From  these  random  data  the  careful 
reader  must  infer  that  the  effect  of  the  presence  of  other  members  of  the  family 


28  At  the  close  of  the  Committee's  exposition  there  was  a  discussion  of  the 
"Brain-Wave"  theory,  and  immediately  following  it  was  an  article  by  the  editor 
which  consisted  of  excerpts  from  his  articles  to  the  Spectator  on  "Brain- Waves : 
A  theory."     (pp.  900-1). 

29  Nineteenth  Century  Magazine,  1882,  12 :  131-3. 


GROUNDS  FOR  SCIENTIFIC  CAUTION  471 

was  far  from  sufficiently  studied.  Indeed  the  opposite  conclusion  from  that  of  the 
committee  is  suggested.  The  latter  expressly  ascribed  failure  under  strange  con- 
ditions to  diffidence,  and  aimed  mainly  to  exclude  only  conscious,  and  underesti- 
mated unconscious,  collusion,  which  the  long  previous  practice  at  home  must  have 
made  almost  inevitable  with  a  set  of  adolescent  girls  however  honest  or  healthy. 
We  should  even  like  a  more  explicit  statement  as  to  how  the  other  sisters  were 
excluded  from  knowledge  of  the  object  selected,  where  they  were,  etc. 

The  methods  of  isolating  the  guesser  are  perhaps  still  less  satisfactory.  At 
first  (Easter,  1881)  the  child  was  sent  into  the  next  room,  and  the  name  of  the 
object  was  written  and  showed  around.  In  April,  1882,  the  child  was  recalled  by 
one  of  the  experimenters,  and  movements  in  the  room  were  excluded  after  the  re- 
call. Later  a  watcher  was  sent  from  the  room  with  the  child,  and  on  being  recalled 
the  latter  was  placed  with  her  eyes  away  from  the  company.  Once  at  least  she 
was  isolated  behind  the  door,  at  Dublin  "behind  an  opaque  curtain"  (although  we 
have  found  an  hypnotically  sensitized  subject  who  could  read  large  letters  in  sun- 
light through  five  thicknesses  of  cotton  sheeting).  In  this  most  vital  respect  also 
there  was  not  only  no  rigorous  control  and  no  systematic  method,  but  only  the  first 
rude  and  irregular  preludes  and  approaches  toward  it.     (p.  130). 

Again  we  cannot  forbear  asking  if  every  experiment,  without  exception,  in 
Mr.  Barrett's  session  of  Easter,  1881,  to  say  nothing  of  Mr.  Stewart's  sessions,  was 
recorded ;  and  if  the  results  were  all  noted  on  the  spot  and  the  conditions  and  de- 
scriptions taken  at  the  time  and  place.  The  experience  of  the  Seybert  commission 
in  these  respects,  especially  the  latter,  as  well  as  the  writer's  own  experience  with 
the  untrustworthiness  of  memory,  even  for  an  hour,  where  such  complex  conditions 
and  interests  are  involved,  is  sufficient  to  justify  this  query.  The  report  of  July, 
1882,  is  not  explicit  on  these  matters,  and,  from  a  careful  scrutiny  of  it,  it  appears 
at  least  doubtful.  When  was  the  paragraph  in  quotation  marks  beginning  page  21 
written,  and  when  the  very  general  description  of  conditions  on  page  20?  If  Mr. 
Barrett  himself  made  or  dictated  these  notes  on  the  spot,  how  could  he,  as  the  only 
person  present  besides  the  family,  possibly  so  secure  himself  against  all  the  mani- 
fold and  subtle  sources  of  fallacy  in  observation  as  to  be  warranted  in  calling  his 
tests  on  this  occasion  "absolutely  unexceptionable  and  conclusive"  as  he  recklessly 
does?  Next  in  importance  to  the  method  of  experimenting  in  so  hazardous  a  field 
is  the  way  of  making  the  protocol  and  working  up  the  final  form  of  the  report. 
Either  this  or  the  accuracy  of  observation,  or  more  probably  with  but  one  ob- 
server, however  good,  against  so  many  possibilities  of  error,  both  must  suffer.  If 
either  of  these  surmises  is  correct,  it  bears  against  the  statement  that  the  girls 
gradually  lost  their  power  from  any  cause  but  increased  precautions  on  the  part 
of  the  experimenters,      (pp.   130-1). 

In  the  study  of  hyperaesthesic  states  we  now  begin  to  realize  the  possibilities 
of  our  sensory  organism,  and  how,  greatly  the  limits  of  just  observability  vary  at 
different  times  and  states  and  in  different  persons,  and  how  it  responds  physically 
to  the  remotest  and  faintest  cosmic  influences.  Hearing,  e.  g.,  which  is  known  to 
vary  exceedingly  among  people  whose  auditory  sensitiveness  passes  for  normal, 
the  writer  has  carefully  tested  in  many  persons.  Two  individuals  were  selected 
for  exceptional  acuteness  in  this  sense,  and  the  following  simple  code  devised  by 
the  writer,  which,  though  repeatedly  tried  in  critical  companies,  has  never  been 
detected,   and   with   results   that   impressed   many   as   genuinely   telepathic.      Pulsa- 


472  APPENDIX    C 

tions,  felt  subjectively  by  the  percipient,  and  easily  counted  by  the  agent,  either 
by  movement  of  the  toe  if  one  leg  was  crossed  on  the  other,  or  directly  seen  in 
tlie  aorta,  or  in  vibrations  of  hairs  or  neck-ribbons,  were  the  basis.  The  faintest 
respiratory  noises  through  the  nose,  or  even  mouth,  of  the  agent,  were  made  to 
coincide  with  and  accent  certain  pulsations  of  the  percipient.  To  make  these 
modified  breathings  so  distinct  as  to  be  clearly  heard  at  a  distance  by  the  normal 
sensitive,  yet  so  faint  as  to  be  inaudible  even  if  listened  for  by  spectators  often 
nearer  than  the  agent,  was  the  art  of  the  latter.  If  a  number  was  selected  by 
some  one  present  the  agent  caught  the  rhythm  of  the  percipient's  pulse,  and  could 
hold  it  for  some  time  if  blindfolded,  or  then  see  it  in  the  toe  occasionally,  and 
gave  a  very  faint  sniff  coinciding  with  a  pulsation,  and  from  this,  as  zero,  the 
percipient  counted  till  the  next  sniff  for  the  first  digit,  then  till  the  next  sniff  for 
the  second  digit,  and  so  on.  For  cards,  first  the  suit  and  then  the  card,  were 
counted  off.  The  alphabet  went  more  slowly,  but  a  series  of  diagrams,  from 
which  the  selection  by  the  company  was  made  which  had  been  memorized  and 
numbered,  was  the  greatest  success.  When  the  percipient's  ears  were  stopped, 
coughs,  jars  on  the  table  or  floor,  etc.,  helped  us  out.  This  trivial  code,  however, 
essentially  depended  ultimately  for  the  absolute  security  it  generally  possessed  on 
the  fact  that  the  percipient  could  hear  more  acutely  than  any  one  present,  and 
when  that  is  the  case  a  telepathy  not  outside  the  ordinary  channels  of  sense  is 
possible.  We  have  no  data  whatever  for  believing  that  the  ear  can  hear  and  dis- 
tinguish muscle  or  pencil  sounds  in  making  different  letters,  hear  whispers  through 
a  couple  of  doors,  etc.,  but  neither  have  we  adequate  data  for  judging  how  far 
these,  or  even  less  desperate  possibilities  in  the  field  of  vision,  would  need  to  be 
stretched  to  account  for  some  of  the  Creery  phenomena,     (p.  131-2). 

We  have  dwelt  with  some  detail  on  the  Creery  phenomena  because  Mr.  Gur- 
ney,  Mr.  Myers  and  Professor  Barrett,  the  most  active  workers  and  probably 
the  best  observers  in  the  English  Society,  spent  so  much  time  on  them,  and  be- 
cause the  former  expressly  states  that  "it  is  to  those  trials  that  we  owe  our  own 
convictions  of  the  possibility  of  genuine  thought-transference."  Hence  a  bias  cer- 
tainly existed  in  all  subsequent  experiments.  The  precautions  grew  more  strict, 
and  probably,  as  we  infer,  the  record  grew  fuller  and  more  exact,  and  what  is 
called  a  decline  in  telepathic  power  we  should  interpret  from  between  the  lines  of 
the  record  as  an  approach  to  the  heart  of  the  mystery,  which  ought  to  encourage 
unbiased  investigators  to  press  onward  to  a  beckoning  goal.  The  girls  grew  dis- 
couraged and  did  not  succeed  with  each  other,  it  is  said.  This  is  natural,  as  in- 
terest in  their  performances  diminished.  But  it  is  strange  that  this  decline  should 
coincide  step  by  step  with  closer  study  of  them,  and  still  more  so  that  all  the 
girls  should  lose  this  marvelous  power  simultaneously!     (pp.  133-4) -30 

In  the  Journal 81  of  the  Society  appears  the  following  note : 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  earliest  experiments  in  Thought-transference 
described  in  the  Society's  Proceedings  were  made  with  some  sisters  of  the  name 
of  Creery ;    and  that  though  stress  was  never  laid  on  any  trials  where  a  chance 


30  American  Journal  of  Psychology,  1888,   1:  128  ff. 

31  October  1887,  3  :  164. 


GROUNDS  FOR  SCIENTIFIC  CAUTION  473 

of  collusion  was  afforded  by  one  or  more  of  the  sisters  sharing  in  the  "agency," 
nevertheless  some  results  obtained  under  such  conditions  were  included  in  the 
records.  In  a  series  of  experiments  recently  made  at  Cambridge,  two  of  the  sis- 
ters, acting  as  "agent"  and  "percipient,"  were  detected  in  the  use  of  a  code  of 
signals ;  and  a  third  has  confessed  to  a  certain  amount  of  signaling  in  the  earlier 
series  to  which  I  have  referred.  This  fact  throws  discredit  on  the  results  of  all 
former  trials  conducted  under  similar  conditions.  How  far  the  proved  willingness 
to  deceive  can  be  held  to  affect  the  experiments  on  which  we  relied,  where  collu- 
sion was  excluded,  must  of  course  depend  on  the  degree  of  stringency  of  the  pre- 
cautions taken  against  trickery  of  other  sorts — as  to  which  every  reader  will  form 
his  own  opinion.  A  further  notice  of  the  facts  here  briefly  stated  will  be  pub- 
lished in  the  Proceedings. 

And  in  the  Proceedings 32  appears  a  two-page  article  entitled  a 
"Note  Relating  to  Some  of  the  Published  Experiments  in  Thought- 
Transference,"  from  which  we  quote: 

The  code  was  as  follows : — When  the  two  sisters  were  in  sight  of  one  an- 
other, the  signals  used  were  a  slight  upward  look  for  hearts,  downwards  for  dia- 
monds, to  the  right  for  spades,  and  to  the  left  for  clubs.  Further,  the  right  hand 
put  up  to  the  face  meant  king,  the  left  hand  to  the  face  meant  queen,  and  knave 
was  indicated  by  crossing  the  arms.  It  is  doubtful  whether  there  were  any  signs 
for  other  cards.  We  failed  to  make  any  out  clearly.  A  table  showing  the  degree 
of  success  in  guessing  each  card  suggests  that  there  were  signs  for  10  and  ace, 
but  that  they  were  either  only  used  occasionally  or  used  with  poor  success. 

In  experiments  in  which  a  screen  was  placed  between  the  two  sisters,  so  that 
they  could  not  see  each  other,  auditory  signs  were  used  to  indicate  suits.  A  scrap- 
ing with  the  feet  on  the  carpet  meant  hearts,  and  sighing,  coughing,  sneezing  or 
yawning  meant  diamonds.  If  there  were  signs  to  distinguish  between  the  black 
suits  they  were — like  the  signs  for  10  and  ace  in  the  visual  code — sparingly  used 
or  often  unsuccessful. 

The  sisters  are  naturally  very  restless,  which  made  the  movements  above 
described  less  obvious  than  they  would  otherwise  have  been.  As  soon  as  some 
clue  to  the  code  used  had  been  obtained,  Mr.  Gurney  and  Mrs.  Sidgwick,  and 
sometimes  Professor  Sidgwick,  set  themselves  to  guess  the  card  (which  they  took 
care  should  be  unknown  to  them)  from  the  signals,  secretly  recording  their 
guesses.     Their  success  afforded  a  complete  proof  of  the  use  of  the  signals.  .  .  . 

The  account  which  was  given  as  to  the  earlier  experiments  conducted  under 
similar  conditions,  is  that  signals  were  very  rarely  used ;  and  not  on  specially 
successful  occasions,  but  on  occasions  of  failure,  when  it  was  feared  that  visitors 
would  be  disappointed. 

The  publication  of  the  note  in  the  Journal  called  forth  a  letter  from 
the  Rev.  A.  M.  Creery,  in  which  he  said : 

Dear  Sir, — The  announcement  which  appears  in  the  last  Journal  that  my 
daughters  were  detected  using  a  code  of  signals  in  some  thought-transference  ex- 


32  Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  1888-89,  5  :  269-70. 


474  ( APPENDIX    C 

periments  at  Cambridge,  has  given  me  intense  pain  ;  and  I  have  no  desire  to  ex- 
cuse their  misconduct,  nor  to  extenuate  their  guilt,  for  which  they  now  grieve 
quite  as  much  as  I  do.  But  I  do  not  believe  that  signs,  signals,  and  hints  of  any 
kind  were^  used  in  the  earlier  experiments.  It  would,  of  course,  be  impossible  to 
say  that  a  sign  was  never  used  in  the  thousands  of  experiments  that  were  made, 
not  only  before  scientific  and  literary  men,  but  in  numerous  drawing-rooms  as  an 
evening  amusement,  during  the  two  or  three  years  in  which  we  were  interested  in 
the  matter,  though  I  was  never  aware  of  it;  but  that  anything  like  a  code  of  sig- 
nals was  ever  in  use  during  the  early  experiments  which  which  I  had  anything 
to  do,  I  do  not  believe,     (p.   175). 

.  .  .  And  yet,  during  all  that  time  I  never  heard  they  were  suspected  of  using 
signals.  Had  they  been  in  the  habit  of  doing  so,  we  might  have  expected  to  find 
them  improving  in  their  guessing,  according  as  "the  code"  became  more  perfect 
by  practice;  but  the  very  reverse  was  the  case.  And  as  I  found,  after  the  early 
part  of  1882,  that  their  faculties  of  percipience  were  gradually  deteriorating,  I 
resolved  to  give  up  the  experiments ;  and  it  was  contrary  to  my  advice  and  wish 
that  they  were  recommenced  after  a  lapse  of  five  years,  knowing  the  power  of 
the  temptation,  which  in  somewhat  kindred  matters  has  proved  almost  universally 
fatal,  to  simulate  by  tricks  what  formerly  came  spontaneously  and  naturally. 

The  last  word  that  I  shall  say  on  this  matter  is  this :  that  if  the  scientific 
investigators,  all  of  whom  afterwards  became  prominent  members  of  the  "Society 
for  Psychical  Research,"  could  have  been  deceived  by  a  few  children  practising  a 
"code  of  signals,"  their  keenness  of  vision,  and  their  faculty  of  "continuous  ob- 
servation," are  less  than  I  could  have  imagined,     (p.  176). ss 

This  blow  to  the  evidence  the  Committee  did  not  appear  to  regard 
as  fatal,  since  occasional  resumes  34  of  evidence  for  thought-transference 
have  since  appeared  from  the  pens  of  the  members  of  the  Committee  or 
of  the  Society  which  include  the  Creery  cases.  They  appear  to  have  re- 
garded the  internal  evidence  of  precautions  against  collusion,  in  the  pub- 
lished records,  as  sufficient  to  indicate  that,  for  example,  when  the  Com- 
mittee alone  acted  as  agents,  a  code  would  have  been  useless. 

Yet,  when  one  examines  the  internal  evidence,  much  that  was  used 
to  support  the  telepathic  hypothesis  is  equally  good  support  for  undis- 
covered signaling — even  in  the  data  from  which  the  "agency"  of  the  sis- 
ters was  supposed  to  be  excluded.  Let  us  examine  briefly  and  seriatim 
the  list 35  of  peculiarities  in  the  experimental  results  which  observers  re- 
marked : 

1.  Since  the  proportion  of  correct  guesses  when  the  members  of 
the  family  were  included  among  the  agents  was  not  greater  than  when 


33  Journal  S.P.R..   November   1887,  3:175-6. 

34  For  example,   Sir  W.  F.   Barrett:     Psychical  Research.     London,   1911,  pp. 
53  ff.     But  the  Creery  series  have  been  avoided  by  Podmore,  Lodge  and  Thomas. 

35  Supra,  pp.  465  ff. 


GROUNDS  FOR  SCIENTIFIC  CAUTION  475 

they  were  excluded,  like  causes  were  probably  operative.  Some  signal- 
ing, one  of  the  girls  confessed,  had  taken  place;  can  one  be  sure  that 
the  members  of  the  family  were  really  excluded  from  "agency"  when 
the  investigators  supposed  that  they  were,  or  that  there  has  been  no  error 
in  the  records,  or  procedure?  Were  the  cards  new  and  unmarked? 
Were  spectacle  reflections  avoided? 

2.  Correct  guesses  were  as  frequent  when  the  chances  against  suc- 
cess were  incalculable  as  when  they  were  greatly  less.  That  is,  whether 
guesses  were  made  upon  fancy  names  or  upon  suits  of  cards.  Take,  for 
illustration,  the  name  "Alfred  Henderson"  which  Mary  Creery  guessed 
at  the  first  trial;  the  chance  of  getting  the  first  letter  right  is  1/36;  of 
getting  Al  right,  is  1/36  X  1/36;  of  getting  the  whole  name,  is  1/3615 
or  .000,000,000,000,000,000,000,004,5 ;  while  the  chance  of  getting  a  suit 
of  cards  right  is  1/4  or  .25.  Now  on  the  assumption  that  a  capacity  for 
thought-transference  operated  with  such  force  that,  in  the  long  run, 
about  one-third  of  the  mental  content  is  transferred  to  the  percipient,  we 
would  expect  in  right  guesses  about  33%  on  names,  and  about  50%  on 
the  suit  of  cards.36  On  the  assumption  of  a  code,  we  would  expect  about 
100%  right  when  the  conditions  were  favorable  for  the  use  of  the  code, 
and  none  right  on  names,  and  but  25%  on  suit,  when  the  conditions  pre- 
cluded its  use.  The  absence  of  gradation  in  the  proportion  of  correct 
guesses  in  accordance  with  the  theoretical  chances,  strongly  supports  the 
hypothesis  of  code. 

3.  The  approximate  guessing  constitutes  prima  facie  evidence  of 
code.  The  run  of  fourteen  correct  guesses  on  suit  occurred  at  Cam- 
bridge, August  2d,  1882,  when  the  two  sisters  who  were  included 
among  the  agents  were  screened  from  the  third  sister,  who  was  acting 
as  percipient,  in  such  a  way  that  the  tops  of  their  heads  only  were  visible 
to  the  percipient.37     The  visual  code  discovered  consisted,   for  suit,  in 


36  Out  of  100  guesses  on  suit,  25  would  be  right  by  chance ;  one-third  of  the 
remainder  (75)  by  thought-transference  would  be  25;  making  the  total  of  right 
guesses  SO. 

37  A  remarkable  instance  of  this  partial  perception  of  the  thing  selected  oc- 
curred on  August  2d.  On  this  occasion  all  the  Committee  were  present ;  two  of 
the  sisters  of  the  guesser  were  also  in  the  room,  and  knew  the  card  selected;  they 
were,  however,  so  placed  that  (though  they  were  completely  in  our  view)  only  the 
tops  of  their  heads  were  visible  to  the  guesser,  and  they  remained  quite  motionless 
and  silent  throughout  the  experiments.  Out  of  32  experiments  with  cards,  5  were 
guessed  completely  right  at  the  first  attempt,  and  in  addition  20  were  partially 
right.  Fourteen  times  running  the  suit  was  named  correctly  on  the  first  trial,  and 
reiterated  on  the  second ;    not  only  was  no  indication  whatever  given  to  show  that 


476  APPENDIX    C 

angular  disposition  of  the  head ;  for  number,  in  disposition  of  the  hands 
or  arms.  Code  for  suit  could  be  used ;  code  for  number  could  not. 
The  fact  that  the  number  of  pips  in  wrong  guesses  was  most  often 
wrong  by  but  one  digit  when  the  number  was  over  six  points  unmistak- 
ably to  the  use  of  signal-code  under  conditions  of  difficulty.  A  mistake 
in  count,  or  failure  to  see  or  hear  the  signals  distinctly,  would  result  in 
such  errors.  This  evidence  is  supported  by  the  fact  that  the  same  sort 
of  error  is  to  be  found  in  the  guesses  on  two-place  numbers  (66  for  67, 
54  and  56  for  55,  71  for  81,  16  for  18,  26  for  29,  22  for  21,  etc.),  where 
the  supposed  cause  (an  indefinite  mental  imagery  of  the  face  of  a  play- 
ing-card) of  the  errors  in  guessing  pips  could  not  be  operative.  The 
progressive  approximation  of  successive  guesses  to  correctness  is  also  a 
characteristic  of  code-reading. 

4.  The  unaccountable  fluctuation  in  the  proportion  of  correct 
guesses  is  thoroughly  consistent  with  signaling  which  would  work  under 
certain  conditions  only.  One  would  expect  such  fluctuations,  under  the 
varying  conditions  of  the  experiments,  more  readily  of  code-reading  than 
of  thought-reading. 

5.  The  decline  in  the  capacity  is  readily  interpreted  as  a  result  of 
the  growing  disinclination  of  the  pastor's  family  for  perpetrating  what 
had  at  length  come  to  appear  to  them  as  a  serious  imposture,  but  what 
had  been  readily  entered  into  in  the  beginning  in  a  spirit  of  innocent 
mischief.  The  seriousness  of  the  enterprise  may  have  been  partly  im- 
pressed upon  them  by  the  increased  vigilance  of  the  Committee  and  partly 
by  learning  something  of  the  scientific  import  of  the  investigation.  In 
order  to  discourage  further  experimentation  they  would  naturally  display 
less  power  in  the  trials  which  they  held  amongst  themselves.  This  inter- 
pretation would  account  for  the  apparent  independence  of  the  decline 
and  "any  increased  stringency  in  precautions  adopted" ;  it  would  account 
for  the  curious  fact  that  the  power  of  the  children  declined  "collectively 
and  separately" ;  and  it  would  not  involve  any  curious  characteristics  of 
a  "pathological  condition"  or  an  "abnormal  sensitiveness." 

The  decline  set  in  with  their  sense  that  the  experiments  had  become  matters 
nf  weighty  importance  to  us,  and  of  somewhat  prolonged  strain  and  tediousness 
to  them.38 

the  suit  was  rightly  named,  but  our  impassive  countenances  and  the  solitary  word 
"No,"  failed  to  displace  from  the  percipient's  mind  the  correct  impression  of  the 
suit.  The  chances  against  success  in  naming  the  suit  rightly  in  any  one  case  are 
of  course  3  to  1,  but  the  chances  against  being  right  fourteen  times  consecutively 
are  4,782.969  to  one.— Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  1 :  74- 
SR  Phantasms  of  the  Living,  vol.  I,  p.  3°- 


GROUNDS  FOR  SCIENTIFIC  CAUTION  477 

6.  The  hypothesis  of  code  is  remarkably  consistent  with  the  other- 
wise curious  fact  that  the  power  to  augment  correct  guesses  decisively 
beyond  chance  was  contagious.  Jane  Dean  was  quite  as  successful  as  the 
Creery  sisters  in  whose  home  she  lived  in  the  capacity  of  maid-servant. 
And  the  neighbor's  children  who  were  called  in  to  join  the  family  in 
their  experiments,  and  who  were  diffident  and  unsuccessful  on  the  first 
evening,  improved  so  much  on  the  second  and  still  more  on  the  third 
that  Mr.  Creery  felt  sure  that  had  they  been  able  to  continue  they  would 
have  equaled  the  members  of  his  own  circle. 

And  there  is  one  more  bit  of  internal  evidence  in  the  published  re- 
sults that  may  be  mentioned  in  support  of  the  hypothesis  of  code. 

On  one  or  two  occasions  it  seemed  of  advantage  to  obtain  vivid  simultaneous 
realization  of  the  desired  word  on  the  part  of  all  sitters ;  which  is  most  easily 
effected  if  some  one  slowly  and  gently  claps  time,  and  all  mentally  summon  up 
the  word  with  the  beats.39 

If  this  device  originated  with  one  of  the  sisters  and  the  clapping 
was  performed  by  one  of  them,  the  process  of  thought-transference 
would  be  entirely  consistent  with  the  later  confession. 

The  internal  evidence  here  adduced,  together  with  the  fact  that  those 
successful  experiments  have  not  been  repeated  in  the  thirty-five  years 
of  experimental  work  on  the  problem  by  the  Society  for  Psychical  Re- 
search and  other  responsible  investigators,  will  probably  be  sufficient  to 
convince  the  reader  that  the  Committee  must  somehow  be  wrong  in  its 
claim  that  it  excluded  from  an  assigned  portion  of  its  experiments  the 
use  of  code. 

The  Smith-Blackburn  Experiments. 

The  second  important  series  of  experiments  carried  out  by  the 
Committee  were  made  with  Mr.  Douglas  Blackburn,  Editor  of  the 
Brightonian,  and  Mr.  G.  A.  Smith,  a  young  mesmerist,  both  of  Brighton. 

Attention  was  drawn  to  these  men  by  a  letter  published  in  Light, 
from  which  Professor  Barrett  presented  in  the  Appendix  to  the  First 
Report  the  following  quotation : 

The  way  Mr.  Smith  conducts  his  experiments  is  this :  He  places  himself  en 
rapport  with  myself  by  taking  my  hands ;  and  a  strong  concentration  of  will  and 
mental  vision  on  my  part  has  enabled  him  to  read  my  thoughts  with  an  accuracy 
that  approaches  the  miraculous.  Not  only  can  he,  with  slight  hesitation,  read  num- 
bers, words,  and  even  whole  sentences  which  I  alone  have  seen,  but  the  sympathy 


89  Proceedings  S.  P.R.,  I  :  20. 


478 


APPENDIX   C 


between  us  has  been  developed  to  such  a  degree  that  he  rarely  fails  to  experience 
the  taste  of  any  liquid  or  solid  I  choose  to  imagine.  He  has  named,  described, 
or  discovered  small  articles  he  has  never  seen  when  they  have  been  concealed  by 
me  in  the  most  unusual  places,  and  on  two  occasions  he  has  successfully  described 
portions  of  a  scene  which  I  either  imagined  or  actually  saw.40 

Douglas  Blackburn,  Editor  of  Brightonian. 

Mr.  Blackburn  is  represented  in  the  Second  Report,41  as  an  asso- 
ciate of  the  Society,  and  "a  very  painstaking  and  accurate  observer." 
The  second  paragraph  of  the  report  of  the  "Brighton  Experiments" 
follows : 

We  entered  into  correspondence  with  Mr.  Blackburn,  who  thereupon  took 
the  trouble  to  send  us  a  paper  recording  in  detail  his  experiments  with  Mr.  Smith. 
These  statements  appeared  to  be  so  carefully  made  that  two  of  our  number,  Mr. 
Myers  and  Mr.  Gurney  (Mr.  Barrett  being  unable  to  go  at  the  time),  arranged 
to  pay  a  visit  to  Brighton  personally  to  investigate  the  joint  experiments  of  Mr. 
Blackburn  and  Mr.  Smith.  These  gentlemen  most  obligingly  placed  themselves 
at  our  service,  and  a  series  of  trials  were  made  in  our  own  lodgings  at  Brighton. 
The  results  of  these  trials  give  us  the  most  important  and  valuable  insight  into  the 
manner  of  the  mental  transfer  of  a  picture  which  we  have  yet  obtained,     (pp.  78-9). 

Experiments  were  begun  December  3,  1882: 

S.  was  blindfolded  at  his  own  wish  to  aid  in  concentration,  and  during  the 
experiment  sat  with  his  back  turned  to  the  experimenters. 

B.  holds  S.'s  hand,  and  asks  him  to  name  a  color,  written  down  by  one  of 
us  and  shown  to  B.  It  is  needless  to  say  the  strictest  silence  was  preserved  dur- 
ing each  experiment. 

[Eight  experiments  on  naming  of  colors.] 
After  a  rest  numbers  were  then  tried  in  the  same  way. 

Number    selected  Answer 
ExPt.    9                                   35  34 

"      10  48  58 

"11  7  7 

Several  trials  of  colofs  and  numbers  were  now  made  with  S.  and  B.  in  sep- 
arate rooms,  which  failed.  Names  were  next  tried,  written  down  and  shown  to 
B.,  who  then  took  S.'s  hand  as  before.  There  was,  as  usual,  no  sound  nor  move- 
ment of  the  lips  on  the  part  of  any  one. 

Name  chosen  Answer 

Expt.  12  Barnard  Harland,   Barnard 

"       14         •  Johnson  Jobson,   Johnson 


40  Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  1882-83,   1 :  63. 

41  Ibid.,  pp.  70-97. 


GROUNDS  FOR  SCIENTIFIC  CAUTION  479 

Two  names  were  then  tried  without  any  contact,  as  follows  : — 

Name  chosen  Answer 

Expt.  16  Hobhouse  Hunter 

ij  Black  Drake,  Blake 

Contact  between  S.  and  B.  was  now  resumed  by  our  express  desire,  as  the 
increased  effort  of  concentration,  needed  when  there  was  no  contact,  brought  on 
neuralgia  in  B. 

Name  chosen  Answer 

Expt.  18  Queen  Anne  Queechy,  Queen 

79  Wissenschaft  Wissie,  Wissenaft 

As  B.  was  ignorant  of  German,  he  mentally  represented  the  word  "Wissen- 
schaft" in  English  fashion,      (pp.  79-80). 

We  next  drew  a  series  of  diagrams  of  a  simple  geometrical  kind,  which  were 
placed  behind  S.,  so  that  B.  could  see  them.  S.  described  them  in  each  case  cor- 
rectly, except  that  he  generally  reversed  them,  seeing  the  upper  side  of  the  diagram 
downward,  the  right  hand  side  to  the  left,  etc. 

Next  day   (December  4th)   we  varied  this  experiment,  thus :— - 

One  of  us,  completely  out  of  sight  of  S.,  drew  some  figure  at  random,  the 
figure  being  of  such  a  character  that  its  shape  could  not  be  easily  conveyed  in 
words ;  this  was  done  in  order  to  meet  the  assumption  that  some  code — such  as 
the  Morse  alphabet— was  used  by  S.  and  B.  The  figure  drawn  by  us  was  then 
shown  to  B.  for  a  few  moments, — S.  being  seated  all  the  time  with  his  back  to  us 
and  blindfolded,  in  a  distant  part  of  the  same  room,  and  subsequently  in  an  ad- 
joining room. 

B.  looked  at  the  figure  drawn ;  then  held  S.'s  hand  for  a  while ;  then  released 
it.  After  being  released,  S.  (who  remained  blindfolded)  drew  the  impression  of 
a  figure  which  he  had  received.  It  was  generally  about  as  like  the  original  as  a 
child's  blindfold  drawing  of  a  pig  is  like  a  pig;  that  is  to  say,  it  was  a  scrawl,  but 
recognizable  as  intended  to  represent  the  original  figure.  In  no  case  was  there  the 
smallest  possibility  that  S.  could  have  seen  the  original  figure;  and  in  no  case  did 
B.  touch  S.  even  in  the  slightest  manner,  while  the  figure  was  being  drawn. 

In  one  case,  No.  6  in  the  series,  the  copy  may  be  said  to  be  as  exact  as  S. 
could  have  drawn  it  blindfold  if  he  had  previously  seen  the  original.  The  figures 
were  not  reversed  on  this  day,  as  they  had  been  on  the  previous  one. 

The  whole  series  of  figures  (nine  in  number)  are  given  in  the  accompanying 
plates,  which  are  engraved  from  photographic  reproductions,  on  the  wood  blocks,  of 
the  original  drawings,     (pp.  80-2). 

In  its  Third  Report  *-  the  Committee  gives  the  results  of  experi- 
ments performed  in  January,  1883,  in  the  rooms  of  the  Society  in  Lon- 
don. Great  care  was  taken  to  record  minutely  the  conditions  of  each 
experiment. 


42  Ibid.,  pp.  161-215. 


480  APPENDIX   C 

Our  modus  operandi  is  as  follows :  The  percipient,  Mr.  Smith,  is  seated 
blindfolded  at  a  table  in  our  own  room;  a  paper  and  pencil  are  within  his  reach, 
and  a  member  of  the  Committee  is  seated  by  his  side.  Another  member  of  the 
Committee  leaves  the  room,  and  outside  the  closed  door  draws  some  figure  at  ran- 
dom. Mr.  Blackburn,  who,  so  far,  has  remained  in  the  room  with  Mr.  Smith,  is 
now  called  out,  and  the  door  closed ;  the  drawing  is  then  held  before  him  for  a 
few  seconds,  till  its  impression  is  stamped  upon  his  mind.  Then,  closing  his  eyes, 
Mr.  Blackburn  is  led  back  into  the  room  and  placed  standing  or  sitting  behind 
Mr.  Smith,  at  a  distance  of  some  two  feet  from  him.  A  brief  period  of  intense 
mental  concentration  on  Mr.  Blackburn's  part  now  follows.  Presently,  Mr.  Smith 
takes  up  the  pencil  amidst  the  unbroken  and  absolute  silence  of  all  present,  and 
attempts  to  reproduce  on  paper  the  impression  he  has  gained.  He  is  allowed  to 
do  as  he  pleases  as  regards  the  bandage  round  his  eyes ;  sometimes  he  pulls  it 
down  before  he  begins  to  draw,  but  if  the  figures  be  not  distinctly  present  to  his 
mind,  he  prefers  to  let  it  remain  on,  and  draws  fragments  of  the  figure  as  they  are 
perceived,     (p.  162). 

Only  eight  experiments,  in  the  reproduction  of  designs,  out  of  a 
total  of  t,j  can  be  put  down  as  unsuccessful.  In  the  first  four  experi- 
ments contact  was  permitted, 

...  as  a  supposed  aid  to  Mr.  Smith  in  visualizing  Mr.  Blackburn's  mental  picture. 
We,  however,  could  allow  no  exception  to  our  cardinal  axiom  on  this  subject,  that 
no  experiment  where  contact  of  any  sort  is  allowed  can  be  decisive ;  and  though 
in  the  present  instance  the  drawings  were  of  such  an  irregular  character  that  their 
description  would  have  been  extremely  difficult  to  convey  by  imperceptible  tracing 
or  by  any  subtle  code  of  pressure-signs,  yet,  assuming  Mr.  Blackburn  and  Mr.  Smith 
to  have  been  in  collusion,  the  hypothesis  was  at  least  conceivable.  Accordingly,  we 
requested  Mr.  Blackburn  to  dispense  altogether  with  the  preliminary  contact ;  and 
it  must  be  understood  that  all  the  rest  of  the  successful  drawings  (with  the  ex- 
ception of  two,  not  here  reproduced,  and  of  Fig.  13  as  explained  below)  were  done 
without  any  contact  whatever,  in  the  manner  already  indicated  on  p.  162.     (p.  163). 

We  have  now  to  consider  whether  it  was  possible  that  any  information  of  the 
character  of  the  designs  drawn  could  have  reached  Smith  through  the  ordinary  ave- 
nues of  sense.  Of  the  five  recognized  gateways  of  knowledge,  four — tasting, 
smelling,  touch,  and  sight — were  excluded  by  the  conditions  of  the  experiment. 
There  remains  the  sense  of  hearing,  which  was  but  partially  interfered  with  by  the 
bandage  over  the  eyes  and  ears.  But  the  information  can  certainly  not  have  been 
conveyed  by  speech ;  our  ears  were  as  near  to  Mr.  Blackburn  as  Mr.  Smith's,  and 
our  eyes  would  have  caught  the  slightest  movement  of  his  lips. 

There  remains  the  hypothesis  of  a  code,  consisting  of  audible  signals  other 
than  oral  speech ;  and  it  would,  no  doubt,  be  an  exaggeration  to  affirm  that  the 
possibility  of  such  signals  was  absolutely  excluded.  We  shall  endeavor  so  to  vary 
the  conditions  of  subsequent  experiments  as  to  exclude  this  hypothesis  completely; 
at  present  we  will  only  point  out  the  very  great  improbabilities  which  it  involves, 
quite  independently  of  our  reliance  on  the  integrity  of  Mr.  Blackburn  and  Mr. 
Smith,  which  nothing  has  occurred  to  shake  in  the  slightest  degree,     (p.  164). 

It  is  probably  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  several  scores,  if  not  hundreds,  of 


GROUNDS  FOR  SCIENTIFIC  CAUTION  481 

precise  signs  would  be  required  to  convey  an  idea  as  exact  as  that  implied  in  many 
of  Mr.  Smith's  representations.  But  in  our  experiments  what  sort  of  range  existed 
for  this  mode  of  communication?  The  material  for  possible  signs  appears  to  be 
reduced  to  shuffling  on  the  carpet,  coughing,  and  modes  of  breathing.  Anything 
distinctly  unusual  in  any  of  these  directions  must  inevitably  have  been  noticed; 
and  since  our  attention,  during  this  part  of  the  experiment,  was  of  course  con- 
centrated on  the  relation  between  Mr.  Blackburn  and  Mr.  Smith  we  are  at  a  loss 
to  conceive  how  any  signaling,  sufficient  in  amount  to  convey  the  required  ideas, 
could  have  passed  undetected.  Furthermore,  it  must  be  observed  that  the  repro- 
ductions were  not  made  in  a  tentative,  hesitating  manner  as  if  waiting  for  signals; 
but  deliberately  and  continuously  as  if  copying  a  drawing  that  is  seen.  Moreover, 
in  almost  every  instance  the  proportions  of  the  different  parts  of  the  original  figure 
were  reproduced  more  accurately  than  were  its  more  easily  describable  details. 
However,  with  the  view  of  removing  all  doubts  that  might  arise  as  to  possible 
auditory  communications,  we  on  one  occasion  stopped  Mr.  Smith's  ears  with  putty, 
then  tied  a  bandage  round  his  eyes  and  ears,  then  fastened  a  bolster-case  over  the 
head,  and  over  all  threw  a  blanket  which  enveloped  his  entire  head  and  trunk. 
No.  22  was  now  drawn  by  one  of  us,  and  shown  outside  the  room  to  Mr.  Black- 
burn, who  on  his  return  sat  behind  Mr.  Smith,  and  in  no  contact  with  him  what- 
ever, and  as  perfectly  still  as  it  is  possible  for  a  human  being  to  sit  who  is  not 
concentrating  his  attention  on  keeping  motionless  to  the  exclusion  of  every  other 
object.  In  a  few  minutes  Mr.  Smith  took  up  the  pencil  and  gave  the  successive 
reproductions  shown  below  [Fig.  7]. 

To  profit  by  a  code  in  this  case,  Mr.  Smith  would  have  had  to  extract  the 
putty  from  his  ears  unobserved  by  us,  (an  action  the  possibility  of  which  the  heavy 
swarthings  rendered  just  conceivable,)  and  then,  still  smothered  in  bolster-case 
and  blanket,  to  detect  periodic  variations  in  Mr.  Blackburn's  breathing  impercept- 
ible to  us;  to  identify  them  as  proceedings  from  Mr.  Blackburn,  and  to  interpret 
them  into  a  description  of  the  figure  given  below.  This  hypothesis  seems  to  us  an 
extreme  one,  but,  as  we  have  already  said,  we  intend  to  meet  it  by  yet  further 
varying  and  narrowing  the  conditions  of  future  experiments,     (p.  165). 4S 

No.  22. 
Original  Drawing.  Successive  Reproductions. 


2? 

Fig.  7. —  Drawings  made  in  a  Smith-Blackburn  experiment  in 
Thought-Transference. 


43  Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  1882-83,  1 :  164-5. 


482  APPENDIX   C 

Dr.  G.  Stanley  Hall  in  his  review  of  "Phantasms  of  the  Living" 
offered  the  following  criticisms  of  this  series : 

With  the  record  of  these  seventeen  reproductions,  without  contact,  of  the 
most  unconventional  diagrams  we  confess  ourselves  more  deeply  impressed  than 
with  any  other  work  of  the  society,  especially  the  remarkable  No.  22,  reproduced 
with  the  ears  of  the  percipient  stopped  with  putty,  and  wraps  enveloping  the  entire 
upper  part  of  his  body.  We  can  but  wish,  however,  there  had  been  more  of  these, 
and  consecutively,  and  that  while  they  were  about  it  the  committee  had  isolated  the 
lower  part  of  Mr.  Smith's  body  from  all  sensation  of  jars,  and  carried,  rolled  or 
swung  the  agent  into  the  room  to  exclude  the  possibility  of  a  code  by  steps  which 
an  American  exhibitor  has  brought  to  an  incredible  degree  of  development,  and 
also  tested  the  amount  of  reduction  of  acuteness  of  audition  in  each  ear  of  Mr. 
Smith,  or  at  least  of  themselves,  by  putty,  and  taken  precautions  to  make  sure  that 
all  light  from  the  floor  was  excluded  from  Mr.  Smith's  eyes.  We  have  practiced 
with  some  success  a  toe-code,  a  part  of  which  is  by  minimal  movements  of  the  great 
toe  within  a  thin  shoe,  the  latter  not  moving  at  all,  and  a  part,  for  complex  figures, 
involving  slight  movement  of  the  toe  of  the  shoe,  which  we  should  think  would 
only  be  facilitated  by  the  conditions  of  No.  22  with  overhanging  wraps  to  shield  it 
from  the  committee.  Moreover,  it  is  just  these  larger  general  forms  and  relations 
of  parts  without  finer  details  that  are  best  transmitted  thus,  while  the  latter,  as  the 
committee  note,  are  absent.  It  seems  worse  than  Mephistophelean — indeed  we  wish 
we  were  freer  from  the  fear  that  it  is  so  in  very  truth — to  even  suggest,  in  place 
of  tension  toward  transcendental  entities,  slight  practiced  movements  of  the  big 
toe.  .  .  .  The  first  four  figures  where  contact  was  allowed  are  certainly  much 
better  reproduced  than  any  other  four  in  the  series,  and  in  Fig.  13  an  entire  change 
of  the  percipient's  conception  of  the  model  was  caused  by  contact,  though  unfor- 
tunately it  is  not  stated  whether  Blackburn  touched  Smith  again  after  he  had  cor- 
rected his  conception  of  the  original,  and  before  it  was  correctly  reproduced,  or 
whether  the  second  reproduction  coincided  with  Blackburn's  memory  of  it.  Again 
in  Fig.  6,  contact  suggested  a  remote  reproduction.  Suggestive,  too,  is  the  circum- 
stance that  after  contact  was  excluded  Mr.  Blackburn  explains  so  many  deviations 
in  the  copy  into  greater  conformity  with  the  originals  by  mistakes  in  his  own  con- 
ception, which  he  had  done  in  no  previous  case  in  this  or  the  earlier  series.  A 
cross  in  one  would  grow  too  large  in  his  mind's  eye  against  his  will ;  he  had  "not 
precisely  remembered"  another ;  forgot  the  eyes  in  another ;  focused  on  one  part 
only  in  another,  and  imagined  curves  in  the  opposite  direction  in  another.  The 
tests  to  account  for  the  mental  inversion  of  objects,  which  strikes  us  as  just  the 
thing,  were  only  forty-two  in  number,  the  result  being  that  eighty-seven  per  cent 
of  the  answers  gave  the  direction  in  which  a  vertical  and  only  thirty-seven  per 
cent  gave  that  in  which  a  horizontal  arrow  pointed.  May  we  add  that  we  have 
found  the  same  advantage  of  perpendiculars  in  the  toe-code,  on  account  of  the 
relative  difficulty  of  lateral  movement?  This  is  doubtless  entirely  irrelevant,  for  it 
is  expressly  stated  that  Smith  sees  in  his  mental  shrine  the  image  of  a  white  arrow 
on  a  dark  ground  and  instantly  detected  the  change  when  a  white  arrow  on  a  red 
ground  was  substituted  for  an  ink-drawn  one.  This  aside,  however,  we  deem  the 
evidence  considerable  that  after  contact  was  given  up  either  a  new  and  less  prac- 
ticed or  more  difficult  code   (conscious  or  unconscious)   was  used,  or  else  that  the 


GROUNDS  FOR  SCIENTIFIC  CAUTION  483 

unknown  telepathic  forces  were  obliged  to  find  and  deepen  other  lines  of  least  re- 
sistance.44 

A  number  of  years  later,  Professor  Minot  made  the  following  com- 
ments on  this  series : 

A  few  of  the  drawings  were  of  a  more  complicated  character,  notably  those 
in  the  trials  conducted  with  Messrs.  Smith  and  Blackburn  under  the  auspices  of 
the  English  Society  for  Psychical  Research.  In  this  special  case  it  is  possible  to 
explain  the  apparent  thought-transference  by  the  hypothesis  of  intentional  collusion 
between  the  performers,  at  least  in  great  part.  That  the  diagrams  can  be  repro- 
duced from  descriptions,  I  have  ascertained  by  trial,  and  that  in  many  of  the 
Smith-Blackburn  experiments  there  was  opportunity  for  signaling  cannot  be  denied ; 
therefore  it  is  quite  possible  that  in  this  instance  the  percipient  was  told  by  his  con- 
federate what  to  draw.  That  mere  watching  is  not  enough  to  guard  against  pos- 
sible deception  by  expert  collusionists  is  well  known,     (p.  225). 

The  most  impressive  tests  of  which  we  have  accounts  are  those  the  value  of 
which  depends  upon  the  attentive  watchfulness  of  the  investigators.  Now,  we 
have  not  only  the  proof  from  Mr.  Davey  45  that  attention  is  not  a  really  sufficient 
guard,  and  that  the  essential  incidents  are  unnoticed,  but  also  the  proof  from  the 
collapse  of  the  Creery  case,  that  the  English  observers  have  been  inattentive  and 
unobservant  in  precisely  the  manner  Mr.  Davey's  slate-writing  tests  render  prob- 
able. In  relying  to  the  extent  they  have  done  upon  watching  with  sustained  atten- 
tion, the  English  experimenters  have  again  failed  to  come  up  to  a  scientific  stand- 
ard, and  they  leave  fraud  an  open  explanation  for  many  of  their  results,     (p.  226). 

After  a  thorough  examination  of  the  evidence  adduced,  I  am  brought  to  the 
conclusion  that  thought-transference,  even  as  a  hypothetical  explanation,  is  a  super- 
fluous conception,     (p.  227 ).46 

In  a  reply  to  Professor  Minot,  Mr.  Frank  Podmore  pointed  out  that 
the  Committee  showed  its  astuteness  in  detecting  the  signaling  of  the 
Creery  sisters  in  the  later  experiments,  and  that  signaling  would  be  use- 
less to  the  sisters,  when  the  investigators  alone  knew  the  object  guessed. 
He  continued : 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  Mr.  Minot's  study  of  the  subject  ceased  apparently 
five  or  six  years  ago,  and  that  he  almost  wholly  ignores  the  great  mass  of  evidence 
accumulated  since  1888.     (p.  333). 

His  [Minot's]  energies  have  been  so  unhappily  diverted  to  the  demonstration 
of  faults  which  do  not  exist  that  he  has  never  touched  at  all  upon  the  weakest 
spot  in  our  experimental  evidence.  For  whilst  no  fully  informed  critic  would 
assert  that  the  experiments  on  which  we  rely  as  establishing  thought-transference 
are  due  to  either  chance  or  fraud,  such  an  one  could  plausibly  maintain  that  at 


44  American  Journal  of  Psychology,  1888,  1:135-6. 

45  Vide,  Proceedings  S.P.R.,  4 :  405-495  ;    8 :  256-9. 

46  Minot:     The  psychical  comedy.     North  American  Review,  February  1895, 
160:217-230. 


484  APPENDIX   C 

least  a  great  part  of  them  may  be  explained  as  the  result  of  information  uncon- 
sciously conveyed  by  normal  channels  from  agent  to  percipient,  and  no  candid  in- 
vestigator would  meet  such  a  criticism  with  a  direct  negative.  This  indeed  is  the 
crux  of  the  whole  inquiry,     (p.  336). *7 

In  191 1,  there  appeared  in  the  London  Daily  News  of  September 
1st  over  the  signature  of  Douglas  Blackburn  a  communication  from 
which  the  following  excerpts  are  made : 

For  nearly  thirty  years  the  telepathic  experiments  conducted  by  Mr.  G.  A. 
Smith  and  myself  have  been  accepted  and  cited  as  the  basic  evidences  of  the  truth 
of  Thought  Transference. 

Your  correspondent  "Inquirer"  is  one  of  many  who  have  pointed  to  them 
as  a  conclusive  reply  to  modern  sceptics.  The  weight  attached  to  those  experi- 
ments was  given  by  their  publication  in  the  first  volume  of  the  Proceedings  of  the 
Society  for  Psychical  Research,  vouched  for  by  Messrs.  F.  W.  H.  Myers,  Edmund 
Gurney,  Frank  Podmore,  and  later  and  inferentially  by  Professor  Henry  Sidg- 
wick,  Professor  Romanes,  and  others  of  equal  intellectual  eminence.  They  were 
the  first  scientifically  conducted  and  attested  experiments  in  Thought  Transference, 
and  later  were  imitated  and  reproduced  by  "sensitives"  all  the  world  over. 

I  am  the  sole  survivor  of  that  group  of  experimentalists,  and  as  no  harm  can 
be  done  to  anyone,  but  possible  good  to  the  cause  of  truth,  I,  with  mingled  feelings 
of  regret  and  satisfaction,  now  declare  that  the  whole  of  those  alleged  experiments 
were  bogies,  and  originated  in  the  honest  desire  of  two  youths  to  show  how  easily 
men  of  scientific  mind  and  training  could  be  deceived  when  seeking  for  evidence 
in  support  of  a  theory  they  were  wishful  to  establish. 

And  here  let  me  say  that  I  make  this  avowal  in  no  boastful  spirit.  Within 
three  months  of  our  acquaintance  with  the  leading  members  of  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research,  Mr.  Smith  and  myself  heartily  regretted  that  these  personally 
charming  and  scientifically  distinguished  men  should  have  been  victimized ;  but  it 
was  too  late  to  recant.  We  did  the  next  best  thing.  We  stood  aside  and  watched 
with  amazement  the  astounding  spread  of  the  fire  we  had  in  a  spirit  of  mischief 
lighted. 

The  genesis  of  the  matter  was  in  this  wise.  In  the  late  seventies  and  early 
eighties  a  wave  of  so-called  occultism  passed  over  England.  Public  interest  be- 
came absorbed  in  the  varied  alleged  phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  Mesmerism,  and 
thought-reading;  "professors"  of  the  various  branches  abounded,  and  Brighton, 
where  I  was  editing  a  weekly  journal,  became  a  happy  hunting  ground  for  medi- 
ums of  every  kind.  I  had  started  an  exposure  campaign,  and  had  been  rather  suc- 
cessful. My  great  score  was  being  the  first  to  detect  the  secret  of  Irving  Bishop's 
thought-reading.  In  1882  I  encountered  Mr.  G.  A.  Smith,  a  youth  of  19,  whom  I 
found  giving  a  mesmeric  entertainment.  Scenting  a  fraud,  I  proceeded  to  investi- 
gate, made  his  acquaintance,  and  very  soon  realized  that  I  had  discovered  a  genius 
in  his  line.  He  has  since  been  well  known  as  a  powerful  hypnotist.  He  was  also 
the    most    ingenious   conjurer    I    have    met   outside    the   profession.      He    had    the 


47  Podmore :      What   psychical    research   has   accomplished.     North   American 
Review,  March  1895,  160:330-344. 


GROUNDS  FOR  SCIENTIFIC  CAUTION  485 

versatility  of  an  Edison  in  devising  new  tricks  and  improving  on  old  ones.  We 
entered  into  a  compact  to  "show  up"  some  of  the  then  flourishing  professors  of 
occultism,  and  began  by  practicing  thought-reading.  Within  a  month  we  were 
astonishing  Brighton  at  bazaars  and  kindred  charity  entertainments,  and  enjoyed 
a  great  vogue.  One  of  our  exhibitions  was  described  very  fully  and  enthusiastic- 
ally in  Light,  the  spiritualistic  paper,  and  on  the  strength  of  that  the  Messrs. 
Myers,  Gurney,  and  Podmore  called  on  us  and  asked  for  a  private  demonstration. 
As  we  had  made  a  strict  rule  never  to  take  payment  for  our  exhibitions,  we  were 
accepted  by  the  Society  as  private  unpaid  demonstators,  and  as  such  remained 
during  the  long  series  of  seances. 

It  is  but  right  to  explain  that  at  this  period  neither  of  us  knew  or  realized 
the  scientific  standing  and  earnest  motive  of  the  gentlemen  who  had  approached 
us.  We  saw  in  them  only  a  superior  type  of  the  spiritualistic  cranks  by  whom  we 
were  daily  pestered.  Our  first  private  seance  was  accepted  so  unhesitatingly,  and 
the  lack  of  reasonable  precautions  on  the  part  of  the  "investigators"  was  so  marked, 
that  Smith  and  I  were  genuinely  amused,  and  felt  it  our  duty  to  show  how  utterly 
incompetent  were  these  "scientific  investigators."  Our  plan  was  to  bamboozle  them 
thoroughly,  then  let  the  world  know  the  value  of  scientific  research.  It  was  the 
vanity  of  the  schoolboy  who  catches  a  master  tripping. 

A  description  of  the  codes  and  methods  of  communication  invented  and  em- 
ployed by  us  to  establish  telepathic  rapport  would  need  more  space  than  could  be 
spared.  Suffice  it  that,  thanks  to  the  ingenuity  of  Smith,  they  became  marvelously 
complete.    They  grew  with  the  demands  upon  them. 

Starting  with  a  crude  set  of  signals  produced  by  the  jingling  of  pince-nez, 
sleeve-link,  long  and  short  breathing,  and  even  blowing,  they  developed  to  a  de- 
gree little  short  of  marvelous.  To  this  day  no  conjurer  has  succeeded  in  ap- 
proaching our  great  feat,  by  which  Smith,  scientifically  blindfolded,  deafened,  and 
muffled  in  two  blankets,  reproduced  in  detail  an  irregular  figure  drawn  by  Mr. 
Myers,  and  seen  only  by  him  and  me. 

The  value  of  a  contribution  such  as  this  should  lie  not  so  much  in  describing 
the  machinery  as  in  pointing  out  how  and  where  these  investigators  failed,  so  that 
future  investigators  may  avoid  their  mistakes. 

I  say  boldly  that  Messrs.  Myers  and  Gurney  were  too  anxious  to  get  cor- 
roboration of  their  theories  to  hold  the  balance  impartially.  Again  and  again  they 
gave  the  benefit  of  the  doubt  to  experiments  that  were  failures.  They  allowed  us 
to  impose  our  own  conditions,  accepted  without  demur  our  explanations  of  failure, 
and,  in  short,  exhibited  a  complaisance  and  confidence  which,  however  compli- 
mentary to  us,  was  scarcely  consonant  with  a  strict  investigation  on  behalf  of  the 
public. 

That  this  same  slackness  characterized  their  investigations  with  other  sensi- 
tives I  am  satisfied,  for  I  witnessed  many,  and  the  published  reports  confirmed  the 
suspicion.  It  is  also  worthy  of  note  that  other  sensitives  broke  down  or  showed 
weakness  on  exactly  the  same  points  that  Smifh  and  I  failed — namely,  in  visual- 
izing an  article  difficult  to  describe  in  words  signaled  by  a  code.  A  regular  figure 
or  familiar  object  was  nearly  always  seen  by  the  percipient,  but  when  a  splotch  of 
ink,  or  a  grotesque  irregular  figure,  had  to  be  transferred  from  one  brain  to  the 
other,  the  result  was  always  failure.  We,  owing  to  a  very  ingenious  diagram  code, 
got  nearer  than  anybody,  but  our  limitations  were  great. 


486  APPENDIX   C 

Smith  and  I,  by  constant  practice,  became  so  sympathetic  that  we  frequently 
brought  off  startling  hits,  which  were  nothing  but  flukes.  The  part  that  fortuitous 
accident  plays  in  this  business  can  only  be  believed  by  those  who  have  become 
expert  in  the  art  of  watching  for  and  seizing  an  opportunity.  When  these  hits 
were  made,  the  delight  of  the  investigators  caused  them  to  throw  off  their  caution 
and  accept  practically  anything  we  offered,     (pp.  115-7). 

The  reports  of  those  trained  and  conscientious  observers,  Messrs.  Myers  and 
Gurney,  contain  many  absolute  inaccuracies.  For  example,  in  describing  one  of 
my  "experiments,"  they  say  emphatically,  "In  no  case  did  B.  touch  S.,  even  in  the 
slightest  manner."  I  touched  him  eight  times,  that  being  the  only  way  in  which 
our  code  was  then  worked,     (pp.  118-9).48 

In  the  Daily  News  of  September  4,  191 1,  appeared  an  interview 
with  Mr.  G.  A.  Smith  from  which  the  following  quotations  are  taken : 

"Let  me  say  at  once,"  he  began,  "that  Mr.  Blackburn's  story  is  a  tissue  of 
errors  from  beginning  to  end.  In  the  first  place  I  most  emphatically  deny  that  I 
ever  in  any  degree,  in  any  way,  when  working  thirty  years  ago  with  Mr.  Black- 
burn, attempted  to  bamboozle  Messrs.  Myers,  Gurney,  and  Podmore.  Had  such  a 
thing  been  possible  I  had  too  much  admiration  and  respect  for  them  and  too  much 
respect  for  myself  to  try.  These  gentlemen,  long  before  they  met  us,  had  spent 
years  in  investigating  psychic  phenomena,  and  were  aware  of  every  device  and 
dodge  for  making  sham  phenomena.  They  were  on  the  watch  not  only  for  pre- 
meditated trickery,  but  for  unconscious  trickery  as  well.  You  could  not  deceive 
them,  and  the  quack  mediums  hated  them  in  consequence."     (pp.  120-1). 

"He  says  we  formed  a  compact  to  'show  up'  the  professors.  We  did- no  such 
thing.     Blackburn  at  that  time  was  a  serious  investigator,  and  assuredly  I  was.  .  .  . 

"He  says  I  was  the  most  ingenious  conjurer  he  ever  met  outside  the  pro- 
fession, whereas  I  am  the  worst  conjurer  in  the  world.  .  .  .  He  says  we  had  a 
code  of  signals.  We  had  not  a  single  one;  we  never  contemplated  the  possibility 
of  coding  until  we  learnt  it  from  Mr.  Myers  and  Mr.  Gurney  themselves.  He  says 
we  practiced  together  and  brought  off  startling  hits.  We  never  did  anything  of 
the  kind.  He  did  once  say  what  a  journalistic  sensation  might  be  made  by  pre- 
tending the  phenomena  were  done  by  trickery.  .  .  ."     (p.121). 

"Do  you  recall,  Mr.  Smith,  what  Mr.  Blackburn  calls  'our  great  feat,'  by 
which  you,  scientifically  blindfolded,  deafened,  and  muffled  in  two  blankets,  repro- 
duced in  detail  an  irregular  figure  drawn  by  Mr.  Myers  and  seen  only  by  him  and 
Mr.  Blackburn?" 

"Yes,  I  recall  it  perfectly,  and  the  discussion  which  followed,  when  Mr. 
Gurney  said  the  only  possible  way  of  doing  it  by  trickery  was  to  conceal  the  draw- 
ing in  a  pencil  case  and  pass  it  into  my  hand.  I  was  amused  to  read  two  years 
ago  in  a  weekly  paper  containing  some  statements  by  Mr.  Blackburn  that  he  gave 
this  very  explanation  of  how  the  'trick'  was  done !" 

"It  was  no  trick  then,  Mr.  Smith?" 

"No,  it  was  a  bona  fide  experiment,  and  the  successful  result  was  either  due 
to  chance  or  telepathy.  .  .  ." 


*«  Journal  S.P.R.,  1911-12,  15:115-9. 


GROUNDS  FOR  SCIENTIFIC  CAUTION  487 

Mr.  Smith,  when  questioned  as  to  the  accuracy  of  Mr.  Blackburn's  statement 
that  he  had  touched  him  (Mr.  Smith)  eight  times,  "that  being  the  only  way  our 
code  was  then  worked,"  denied  that  Mr.  Blackburn  had  ever  touched  him. 

".  .  .  We  had  no  code,"  he  said.  "The  whole  object  of  the  experiment  was 
to  obtain  thought-transference,  and  all  touchings  were  out  of  the  question.  When- 
ever there  was  any  touching  or  contact  of  any  description  it  is  always  minutely 
recorded  by  the  observers — see  the  records  of  the  Psychical  Research  Society. 

"Further — and  this  is  most  important — none  of  the  experiments  in  which  Black- 
burn was  concerned  have  been  put  forward  by  the  Psychical  Research  Society  in 
any  authoritative  work."     (p.  122).49 

Mr.  Blackburn  replied  on  the  following  day : 

The  fact  that  Mr.  G.  A.  Smith  is  alive  supplies  another  argument  in  support 
of  my  pet  theory,  that  most  human  evidence  is  unreliable.  I  was  informed  of  his 
death  when  I  was  in  Africa,  and  since  my  return  two  persons  who  claimed  to 
know  him  corroborated  independently,  while  a  letter  I  addressed  to  him  was  re- 
turned "not  known."  Had  I  been  aware  of  his  existence  I  should  not  have  opened 
up  the  subject,  for  I  am  aware  that  Mr.  Smith,  as  he  confirms  in  to-day's  inter- 
view, spent  many  of  the  years  that  have  elapsed  since  our  acquaintance  in  close 
association  with  leading  members  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research  in  a  fidu- 
ciary capacity.  I  am  also  aware  that  that  position  was  the  legitimate  reward  for 
his  services  in  connection  with  our  telepathic  "experiments"  and  his  undoubted 
power  as  a  remarkable  hypnotist. 

While  pleased  to  learn  that  the  bright,  amusing,  and  ingenious  confrere  of 
thirty  years  ago  is  in  the  prime  of  life,  I  am  sorry  that  I  should  have  unintention- 
ally forced  him  into  having  to  defend  a  position  he  has  occupied  so  long.  I  have 
been  reproached  for  postponing  my  confession  until  after  the  death  of  the  prin- 
cipals. I  am  satisfied  that  in  doing  this  I  showed  my  regard  for  those  gentlemen — 
Mr.  Smith  included — and  my  desire  to  avoid  giving  them  pain.  That  Mr.  Smith 
should  have  to  bear  the  brunt  of  the  attack  is  unfortunate,  but  quite  accidental  on 
my  part. 

But  now  to  business.  Mr.  Smith  gives  a  categorical  denial  to  my  story;  de- 
clares that  he  was  a  genuine  sensitive,  and  I  also  the  possessor  of  psychic  power. 
He  could  do  no  less,  and  I  cannot  blame  him.  He  was  a  plucky  controversialist 
in  those  younger  days,  and  I  am  prepared  to  see  him  put  up  a  tough  fight  now. 

In  most  controversies  there  is  a  tendency  to  obscure  the  main  issue  by  the 
introduction  of  minor  details.  Let  us  clear  the  decks  of  unnecessary  lumber,  such 
as  the  question  whether  I  first  approached  the  S.  P.  R.,  or  they  me.  It  is  sufficient 
that  we  met.  It  is  also  agreed  that  Smith  and  I  conducted  many  alleged  telepathic 
experiments.  It  is  a  fact  that  those  experiments  were  considered  of  sufficient  im- 
portance then  to  be  given  first  place  in  the  official  report.  Mr.  Smith  also  knows 
that  they  excited  great  interest,  and  that  he  and  I  were  made  much  of  by  many 
men  of  scientific  eminence.  To  attempt  to  belittle  the  importance  of  those  experi- 
ments now  is  childish.  No  doubt  greater  things  have  been  brought  off  since,  but 
we  were  the  pioneers,  and  I  am  satisfied  that  we  unintentionally  gave  scores  of 
subsequent  experimenters  the  cue  how  to  become  "telepathic  sensitives." 


48  Ibid.,  pp.  120-2. 


488  APPENDIX    C 

Mr.  Smith  denies  that  we  employed  a  code.  My  reply  is  that  without  one  it 
would  have  been  impossible  for  me  to  convey  to  him  the  figures  drawn  by  the 
members  of  the  committee  for  transference  from  my  brain  to  that  of  the  blind- 
folded, blanket-muffled,  sensitive  Smith.  Let  us  dismiss  all  the  other  successful 
experiments— any  one  of  which  I  will  undertake  to  repeat  to-day  under  identical 
conditions,  with  the  aid  of  any  intelligent  confederate — and  confine  ourselves  to  "our 
great  feat,"  which  Mr.  Smith  tells  your  interviewer  he  recalls  perfectly.  That 
feat,  if  genuine,  would  establish  telepathy  beyond  cavil.  All  others  sink  into  in- 
significance in  comparison.  It  was  a  master  stroke,  and  so  great  was  the  im- 
pression produced  by  it,  both  upon  the  "best  trained  and  best  qualified  observers  in 
London"  and  ourselves,  that  we  decided  to  retire  upon  our  laurels,  feeling  certain 
we  could  never  hope  to  repeat  or  equal  it.  It  was  the  best  and  last  thing  I  did. 
As  Mr.  Smith  repudiates  participation  in  the  invention,  I  will  take  full  credit  or 
otherwise  for  it.  I  ask  that  readers  will  note  very  carefully  every  detail  in  the 
ensuing  description  of  the  trick,  for  it  is  they  who  will  have  to  give  the  verdict. 

The  committee  had  realized  the  possibility  of  conveying  by  signals  a  descrip- 
tion of  a  regular  figure  or  any  object  capable  of  being  described  in  words,  and  I 
would  direct  the  attention  of  those  who  have  access  to  the  printed  copies  of  the 
early  figures  Smith  and  I  produced.  It  will  be  noticed  that  so  long  as  the  figures 
were  describable  in  words  they  were  fairly  accurate  reproductions;  but  the  more 
irregular  and  indescribable  they  became  the  greater  and  wider  the  discrepancies 
between  the  original  seen  by  me  and  the  copy  produced  by  Smith.  Now  I  put  it 
as  a  fair  question :  If  Smith  could  see  what  I  saw,  as  he  professed,  why  is  it  that 
he  could  see  plainly  an  equilateral  triangle,  but  fail  to  see  it  if  one  of  the  sides  or 
angles  was  "wobbly"  and  out  of  shape?  Again,  if  he  could  reproduce  with  rea- 
sonable accuracy  the  silhouette  of  a  man's  head,  easily  described  by  a  code,  why  did 
he  fail  when  that  same  head  was  touched  up  with  black  ink  protuberances,  with 
the  nose  under  the  chin,  a  big  ear  on  the  back  of  the  head,  and  so  on?  The  reason 
was  simple.  Our  code  was  confined  to  regular,  or  fairly  regular,  figures.  It  would 
have  taken  hours  to  spell  out  a  full  description  of  that  figure  by  the  sounds,  move- 
ments, intervals  of  time,  bogus  mesmeric  passes  that  stirred  his  hair,  and  the  num- 
erous, almost  imperceptible,  signals  that  formed  perhaps  the  most  complex  and  ef- 
fective code  ever  used  by  conjurers.  I  doubt  whether  any  person  could  write  at 
leisure  a  description  of  such  an  object  so  accurately  as  to  enable  another  one  to 
reproduce  the  figure  from  that  description. 

This  reasonable  point  of  view  occurred  to  the  committee,  and  they  abandoned 
regular  figures  for  complex  indescribables.  Need  I  say  that  we  failed  again  and 
again?  In  fact,  we  ceased  any  attempt  to  "transfer"  them.  I  had  a  signal,  which 
I  gave  Smith  when  the  drawing  was  impossible.  We  made  a  pretense  of  trying 
hard,  but,  after  a  time,  would  give  up  on  the  stock  explanation  of  "absence  of 
rapport."  Mr.  Smith  is  angry  with  me  for  holding  in  light  esteem  the  capacity 
of  Messrs.  Myers  and  Gurney  for  taking  precautions  against  deception.  I  confess 
that  their  irregular  drawings  completely  snuffed  out  the  psychic  power  which,  ac- 
cording to  Mr.  Smith,  I  possessed  without  knowing  it.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
committee  were  beginning  to  have  grave  doubts  when  the  "great  feat"  I  shall  now 
describe  saved  our  reputations  and  enabled  me  at  least  to  carry  out  my  bat. 

These  were  the  conditions :  Smith  sat  in  a  chair  at  a  large  table.  His  eyes 
were  padded  with  wool,  and,  I  think,  a  pair  of  folded  kid  gloves,  and  bandaged 


GROUNDS  FOR  SCIENTIFIC  CAUTION  489 

with  a  thick  dark  cloth.  His  ears  were  filled  with  one  layer  of  cotton-wool,  then 
pellets  of  putty.  His  entire  body  and  the  chair  on  which  he  sat  were  enveloped 
in  two  very  heavy  blankets.  I  remember,  when  he  emerged  triumphant,  he  was 
wet  with  perspiration,  and  the  paper  on  which  he  had  successfully  drawn  the  figure 
was  so  moist  that  it  broke  during  the  examination  by  the  delighted  observers. 
Beneath  his  feet  and  surrounding  his  chair  were  thick,  soft  rugs,  rightly  intended 
to  deaden  and  prevent  signals  by  feet-shuffles — a  wise  precaution,  for  in  our  early 
experiments  my  feet  did  marvelous  things.  Smith  being  rendered  contact  proof 
and  perfectly  insulated,  my  part  began. 

At  the  farther  side  of  the  room — a  very  large  dining-room — Mr.  Myers  showed 
me,  with  every  precaution,  the  drawing  that  I  was  to  transmit  to  the  brain  beneath 
the  blankets.  It  was  a  triangle  of  heavy  black  lines,  interlaced,  some  curved,  some 
straight,  the  sort  of  thing  an  infant  playing  with  a  pen  or  pencil  might  produce, 
and  I  am  certain  absolutely  indescribable  in  words,  let  alone  a  code.  I  took  it, 
fixed  my  gaze  on  it,  pacing  the  room  meanwhile  and  going  through  the  usual  pro- 
cess of  impressing  the  figure  upon  my  retina  and  brain,  but  always  keeping  out  of 
touching  distance  with  Smith.  These  preliminaries  occupied  perhaps  ten  or  more 
minutes,  for  we  made  a  point  of  never  hurrying.  I  drew  and  redrew  the  figure 
many  times  openly  in  the  presence  of  the  observers,  in  order,  as  I  explained  and 
they  allowed,  to  fix  it  on  my  brain.  I  also  drew  it,  secretly,  on  a  cigarette  paper. 
By  this  time  I  was  fairly  expert  at  palming,  and  had  no  difficulty,  while  pacing  the 
room  collecting  "rapport,"  in  transferring  the  cigarette  paper  to  the  tube  of  the 
brass  protector  on  the  pencil  I  was  using.  I  conveyed  to  Smith  the  agreed  sig- 
nal that  I  was  ready  by  stumbling  against  the  edge  of  the  thick  rug  near  his  chair. 

Next  instant  he  exclaimed :  "I  have  it,"  his  right  hand  came  from  beneath  the 
blanket,  and  he  fumbled  about  the  table,  saying,  according  to  arrangement : 
"Where's  my  pencil  ?" 

Immediately  I  placed  mine  on  the  table.  He  took  it  and  a  long  and  anxious 
pause  ensued. 

This  is  what  was  going  on  under  the  blanket.  Smith  had  concealed  up  his 
waistcoat  one  of  those  luminous  painted  slates  which  in  the  dense  darkness  gave 
sufficient  light  to  show  the  figure  when  the  almost  transparent  cigarette  paper 
was  laid  flat  on  the  slate.  He  pushed  up  the  bandage  from  one  eye,  and  copied 
the  figure  with  extraordinary  accuracy.  It  occupied  over  five  minutes.  During 
the  time  I  was  sitting  exhausted  with  the  mental  effort  quite  ten  feet  away. 

Presently  Smith  threw  back  the  blanket  and  excitedly  pushing  back  the  eye 
bandage  produced  the  drawing,  which  was  done  on  a  piece  of  notepaper,  and  very 
nearly  on  the  same  scale  as  the  original.     It  was  a  splendid  copy.     (pp.  123-6). 50 

In  a  second  interview  published  in  the  Daily  News  on  September 
6th  Mr.  Smith  said: 

It  is  the  most  amazing  piece  of  invention  ever  brought  to  my  notice.  .  .  .  All 
the  essential  points  of  Mr.  Blackburn's  article  are  untrue,  and  I  deny  the  whole 
story  from  beginning  to  end.     (p.  127).81 


so  Ibid. 
61  Ibid. 


400  APPENDIX   C 

Members  of  the  Society  came  forward  with  expressions  of  confi- 
dence in  Mr.  Smith : 

Professor  Barrett  said : 

Now  I  was  present  at  that  experiment,  and  you  may  say  that  not  only  I, 
but  Myers  and  Gurney,  had  the  most  absolute  confidence  in  Mr.  Smith,     (p.  129)  .52 

Mrs.  Henry  Sidgwick  said  : 

.  .  .  All  communication  of  the  leading  workers  in  psychical  research  with  Mr. 
Blackburn  ceased  not  long  after  the  experiments  in  question,  and,  ...  on  the  other 
hand,  the  connection  of  Mr.  G.  A.  Smith  with  the  work  of  the  society  was  long 
and  intimate,     (p.  130)  .S3 

Mr.  Blackburn's  statement  is  confirmed  to  a  certain  extent  by  an  article  in 
the  Westminster  Gazette  for  January  29th,  1908.  There  Sir  James  Crichton- 
Browne  describes  how  he  and  Dr.  Francis  Galton  on  one  occasion  were  present, 
as  outsiders  invited  by  Professor  Romanes  on  behalf  of  some  members  of  the 
S.  P.  R.,  at  the  Dean's  Yard  experiments  with  Smith  and  Blackburn.  He  tells  us 
that  Smith,  the  percipient,  was  blindfolded  and  succeeded  in  reproducing  a  few 
regular  or  simple  figures,  such  as  an  owl,  the  diagram  on  which  Blackburn  had 
concentrated  his  mind  in  one  of  the  experiments.  But  Smith  completely  failed  in 
reproducing  an  irregular  figure  which  Professor  Romanes  and  Sir  James  Crichton- 
Browne  subsequently  insisted  on  as  a  test  when  they  began  to  suspect  the  use  of  a 
code.  The  next  diagram  was  the  shield  on  Dr.  Galton's  signet  ring.  This  had  an 
oval  shape,  but  the  reproduction  was  of  a  triangular  shield.  Sir  James  Crichton- 
Browne  continues:  "By  this  time  I  was  quite  satisfied  that  Mr.  S.  was  not  effec- 
tually blindfolded,  and  that  it  was  practicable  for  Mr.  B.  to  communicate  with  him 
both  by  sight  and  hearing ;  so  Romanes  and  I  asked  permission,  which  was  granted, 
to  blindfold  him  anew.  We  proceeded  to  do  so  secundum  artem.  Cotton-wool 
was  procured,  the  sockets  were  packed,  the  ears  were  plugged,  and  a  large  hand- 
kerchief made  all  secure.  After  that  several  experiments  were  tried  as  before, 
but  there  never  was  the  smallest  response  on  the  part  of  Mr.  S.  to  Mr.  B.'s  voli- 
tional endeavors.  There  was  no  more  flashing  of  images  into  his  mind.  His  pen- 
cil was  idle.  Thought-transference  was  somehow  interrupted."  And  he  concluded 
the  account  as  follows :  "I  was  invited  to  be  critical  and  sceptical,  and  I  was  so. 
I  daresay  more  credulously  inclined  people  will  think  that  my  suspicions  were  un- 
just and  that  no  trick  was  practised— that  was  clearly  the  feeling  of  some  of  the 
psychical  researchers  present.  The  last  scene  of  all,  or  passage-at-arms,  I  vividly 
recollect.  Mr.  Myers,  standing  in  front  of  the  fireplace,  said,  'It  must  be  allowed 
that  this  demonstration  has  been  a  total  failure,  and  I  attribute  that  to  the  offen- 
sive incredulity  of  Dr.  Crichton-Browne.'  To  which  I  rejoined  'I  hope  I  always 
will  show  offensive  incredulity  when  I  find  myself  in  the  presence  of  patent  im- 
posture.' "  64 


=2  Ibid. 
53  Ibid. 

64  Tuckett :     Psychical    researchers    and    "the    will    to    believe."      Bedrock 
197-8. 


GROUNDS  FOR  SCIENTIFIC  CAUTION  491 

In  the  Blackburn-Smith  controversy  misstatements  were  made  on 
both  sides ;  but  the  most  serious  of  these  were  made  by  Smith  and  his 
colleagues  in  attempting  to  show  that  the  experiments  concerned  had 
not  been  regarded  by  the  Society  as  important,  whilst  the  reader  in  ac- 
cess to  the  Proceedings  (1882-3)  may  see  Ior  himself  that  they  were 
portrayed  by  the  Society  in  its  most  authoritative  publication  as  evidence 
of  the  first  rank.  This  misrepresentation  certainly  discredits  the  So- 
ciety's case.  It  is  indeed  clear  that  at  some  time  between  the  publication 
of  the  Committee's  Third  Report  (April  24,  1883),  and  the  publication 
of  the  "Phantasms  of  the  Living"  (June  1886),  the  Society  determined 
to  suppress  the  re-publication  of  this  series  of  experiments :  they  were 
not  re-published  in  the  "Phantasms  of  the  Living" ;  they  are  not  in- 
cluded in  Podmore's  or  Thomas'  resumes ;  even  Barrett  omits  them  in 
his  book  on  "Psychical  Research"  which  appeared  in  191 1.55 

Why? 

Since  Smith  was  a  percipient  in  these  experiments  in  which  the  re- 
produced diagrams  show  unmistakably  and  decisively  in  every  published 
case  a  relation  to  the  originals  which  cannot  be  attributed  to  chance, 
does  not  the  Society  in  suppressing  the  experiments  impeach  Smith  as  a 
reliable  party  to  a  thought-transference  experiment?  This  situation  is 
particularly  unfortunate,  for  the  reason  that  in  all  of  the  later  principal 
series  of  officially  conducted  experiments  in  thought-transference  which 
the  Society  regards  as  the  most  successful  the  hypnotist  and  agent  was 
Mr.  Smith. 

But  apart  from  the  controversy  and  the  inexplicable  position  of  the 
Society,  what  can  the  inquiring  reader  make  out  of  this  series  of  experi- 
ments? Are  the  undoubted  similarities  between  reproductions  and  orig- 
inals to  be  regarded  as  evidence  of  thought-transference  or  of  code? 

1.  The  similarities  between  reproductions  and  originals  in  both  the 
geometric  and  the  fantastic  figures,  are  evident  in  gross  outline  of  the 
whole  drawing  or  of  its  separate  parts  the  relations  of  which  are  not 
preserved,  and  are  just  such  similarities  as  one  should  expect  from  the 
use  of  movement  or  verbal  code  (a  flagrant  and  decisive  instance  is  No. 
7,  Proceedings,  1 :  185).  The  detail  which  would  be  transferred  with  a 
visual  image  is  absolutely  lacking;    it  was  the  idea,  not  the  design,  that 


55  It  was  probably  an  oversight  that  the  Society  permitted  these  experiments 
to  be  mentioned  and  some  of  the  drawings  to  be  reproduced  in  "The  Society  for 
Psychical  Research,  its  rise  and  progress  and  a  sketch  of  its  work,"  which  was 
published  in  1003  by  Edward  T.  Bennett,  for  twenty  years  Assistant  Secretary  of 
the  Society. 


492  APPENDIX   C 

was  communicated.  This  deviation  in  similarity  is  far  beyond  what  may 
be  attributed  to  Mr.  Blackburn's  fading  or  changing  imagery  of  the 
figure. 

2.  In  the  guessing  of  colors  and  of  names,  the  increased  approxi- 
mation in  successive  trials  is  a  characteristic  of  code  reading  when  the 
code  is  working  under  difficult  conditions. 

3.  The  errors  in  guessing  numbers  are  precisely  code  errors :  for 
35,  34;  for  48,  58  (Experiments  9  and  10). 56  It  is  this  type  of  error 
that  occurred  so  frequently  in  the  guesses  of  the  Creery  sisters  57  and 
also  in  the  responses  of  "Clever  Hans,"  the  "educated"  horse  of  Herr 
Von  Osten.58 

Internal  evidence  points  decisively  to  the  use  of  code  in  this  series 
of  experiments.  This  hypothesis  is  congruent  with  the  external  evi- 
dence : 

( 1 )  Smith  had  been  engaged  with  Blackburn  in  giving  exhibitions 
of  thought-reading  in  Brighton  prior  to  these  experiments,  and  no  public 
exhibitions  of  thought-reading,  thought-transference,  or  telepathy  of  any 
sort,  are  ever  given  without  the  use  of  code.  He  was  accustomed  there- 
fore to  reading  code  signaled  by  Blackburn.  The  probability  that  he  dis- 
continued the  use  of  code  with  the  entrance  of  Gurney  and  Myers  among 
the  spectators,  is  not  very  crushing. 

(2)  The  sudden  permanent  interruption  of  the  investigation  was  not 
expected  by  the  Committee,  since  further  experiments  were  in  view,59 
and  was  not  welcomed  by  them  for  the  reason  that  they  hoped  to  get  so 
much  further  decisive  evidence  as  would  be  necessary  to  break  down  the 
skeptic's  hypothesis  of  code  as  completely  as  their  own  doubts  had  been 
removed  by  the  reproductions  in  Fig.  22.  This  unexpected  interruption, 
just  at  a  most  interesting  point  in  the  investigation,  would  be  entirely 
consistent  with  the  motives  60  of  two  young  adventurers  who  had  in  a 
spirit  of  mischief  carried  their  enterprise  to  a  point  where  they  were 
both  conscience-stricken  with  the  gravity  of  their  perfidy,  or  fearful  of 
serious  disaster  through  exposure. 

(3)  The  later  repudiation  of  the  investigation  by  the  Society  im- 
plicates Smith  in  code-reading. 


56  Supra,  p.  478. 

57  Supra,  pp.  466,  475-6. 

58  Pfungst :    Clever  Hans.     New  York,   191 1,  p.  144. 

59  Vide,  Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  1  :  165. 

60  Suggested   in   the  fourth  paragraph   of  Mr.   Blackburn's   first  letter,  supra, 
p.  484. 


GROUNDS  FOR  SCIENTIFIC  CAUTION  493 

If  this  is  the  status  of  the  best  of  the  officially  conducted  experi- 
ments with  normal  percipients,  what  must  be  thought  of  all  the  rest  of 
the  Society's  evidence  for  thought-transference?  Simply  because  Smith 
and  the  Creery  sisters  were  the  only  parties  to  the  experiments  who 
have  been  known  to  use  code  is  no  guarantee  that  other  experimenters 
not  originally  under  the  control  of  the  Committee  were  free  from  either 
code  or  other  deceptive  devices.  The  third  series  of  experiments  upon 
which  the  Society  placed  reliance  for  proof  of  thought-transference  to  a 
normal  percipient  was  conducted  by  Messrs.  Malcolm  Guthrie  and  James 
Birchall,  in  Liverpool.  Both  investigators  were  inexperienced  in  this 
sort  of  investigation.  The  young  ladies,  who  were  employed  in  Mr.  Guth- 
rie's drapery  establishment,  and  with  whom  the  experiments  were  made, 
began  their  practice  of  thought-reading  in  imitation  of  Irving  Bishop, 
and  although  the  reports  of  this  series  of  experiments  occupy  consider- 
able space  in  the  Society's  Proceedings,61  the  published  results  give  in- 
ternal evidence  of  code.62    Concerning  this  series,  Moll  writes : 

There  was  a  time  when  some  of  the  telepathic  experiments  carried  out  in 
England— more  especially  those  made  by  Guthrie  and  Birchall— appeared  to  me, 
relatively  speaking,  free  from  error.  Nevertheless,  when  I  take  into  consideration 
the  way  in  which  the  reports  are  drawn  up,  I  am  compelled  to  admit  that  those 
experiments  are  not  convincing.63 

G.  Stanley  Hall  wrote : 

There  is  little  indication  that  Mr.  Guthrie  is  aware  of  the  number  and  subtilty 
of  the  sources  of  error  in  such  experiments  as  he  conducts.64 

The  best  evidence  the  Society  has  for  thought-transference  to  an 
hypnotized  percipient  lies  in  the  results  of  two  series  of  experiments  65 
in  which  Mr.  G.  A.  Smith  was  both  hypnotist  and  agent. 

Podmore  was  probably  right  in  his  statement  quoted  above,66  to  the 
effect  that  the  crux  of  the  Society's  proof  of  thought-transference  lies 
in  the  possibility  that  information  was  "unconsciously  conveyed  by  nor- 
mal channels  from  agent  to  percipient,"  in  that  this  vera  causa  may  rea- 
sonably be  conceived  to  have  operated  in  all  cases  where  collusion  is  not 


61  1882-83,  1:263-283;    1883-84,  2:24-42,  189-200;    1885,  3:424-452. 

62  The   peculiar   code-error   of  missing  a   number  or   letter  just   one   or  two 
places  is  found  in  almost  every  error  on  numbers  or  letters. 

63  Moll :    Hypnotism.     4th  ed.,  p.  552. 

64  American  Journal  of  Psychology,  1:  137. 

as  Proceedings  S.P.R.,  1889-90,  6:  128-170;    1892,  8:536-596. 
66  Supra,  pp.  483-4- 


494  APPENDIX   C 

a  sufficient  explanation.  Unconscious  indications  of  this  sort  would  have 
put  the  Creery  sisters  who  were  sometimes  excluded  from  "agency"  into 
a  position  to  make  effective  use  of  their  code. 

That  the  Society  has  not  been  alive  to  the  difficulties  of  investigation 
in  this  field  is  evident  in  its  publications  from  the  beginning  to  the  pres- 
ent time.  Circular  No.  i,  published  in  December,  1883,  under  (1) 
Thought-transference,  says: 

What  is  needed,  then,  is  a  large  number  of  experiments  similar  to  those 
already  published,  but  conducted  by  different  groups  of  persons  and  under  different 
conditions.  We  have  reason  to  believe  that  the  percipient  faculty,  so  far  from 
being  abnormal  or  infrequent  is  pretty  generally  diffused;  and  if  this  fact  is  grad- 
ually made  good  among  persons  of  recognized  position  and  intelligence,  attempts 
to  explain  the  results  by  trickery  and  collusion  will  become  increasingly  ridiculous. 
Only  thus,  moreover,  can  we  obtain  sufficient  material  upon  which  to  base  general- 
izations.67 

Similar  appeals  have  been  made  for  general  and  incompetent  assistance 
to  within  recent  years. es 

The  general  reader  can  get  a  fair  idea  of  the  difficulty  of  such  in- 
vestigation from  two  fairly  popular  and  readable  accounts  of  what  may 
be  regarded  as  elementary  investigations,  the  first  being  much  more  rig- 
orous than  the  second  in  procedure  and  extent  of  work:  (1)  The  report 
of  a  German  psychologist,  Dr.  Pfungst,  on  the  processes  employed  by  the 
celebrated  horse  "Clever  Hans,"  in  his  apparently  intelligent  responses 
to  questions;69  and  (2)  the  report  of  Professor  Miinsterberg  on  his  in- 
vestigation of  the  little  telepathist,  Beulah  Miller,  of  Rhode  Island.70 
Both  of  these  investigations  were  stopped  short  with  preliminary  yet  sig- 
nificant findings.  Serious  investigation  of  thought-transference  would, 
of  course,  be  pressed  to  a  conclusion  with  respect  to  a  complete  descrip- 
tion and  classification  of  the  various  laws  found  to  govern  the  phenom- 
ena. Certainly  no  drawing-room  experiments  can  command  the  respect 
of  scientists. 

Largely  because  of  the  Society's  failure  to  realize  the  difficulty  of 
thought-transference  investigation,  and  of  its  fatal  overestimation  of  the 
capacity  of  astute  observers  to  cope  with  collusionists  (always,  of  course, 

67  Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  1893,  I  :  297. 

68  Journal  S.P.R.,  October   1911,  15:131-2. 

69  Oskar  Pfungst :  Clever  Hans,  A  Contribution  to  Experimental  Animal  and 
Human  Psychology.     Tr.  by  Rahn.     New  York:    Holt,  191 1. 

70  Miinsterberg :  Psychology  and  Social  Sanity.  New  York :  Doubleday, 
1914,  PP-   I4I-I77- 


GROUNDS  FOR  SCIENTIFIC  CAUTION  495 

in  a  limited  series  of  trials  of  which  the  collusionists  retain  complete 
control),  its  policy  in  amassing  evidence  has  embraced  a  serious  fallacy 
— the  "fagot  theory": 

It  is  not  necessary  .  .  .  that  any  individual's  honesty  shall  be  completely  as- 
sumed, in  the  sense  of  being  used  as  a  certain  basis  for  conclusions.  The  proof 
must  depend  on  the  number  of  persons,  reputed  honest  and  intelligent,  to  whom 
dishonesty  or  imbecility  must  be  attributed  if  the  conclusions  are  wrong,  i.  c,  it 
must  be  a  cumulative  proof  .  .  .  enough  sticks  must  be  collected  and  tied  to- 
gether to  make  a  fagot  of  a  strength  which  shall  defy  suspicion.71 

The  keenest  scientific  observer  may  fail  utterly  to  detect  a  skillfully 
worked  code,  without  meriting  the  charge  of  either  imbecility  or  care- 
lessness, and  he  may  be  an  unconscious  party  to  sensory  communication, 
without  being  dishonest.72  Untrustworthiness,  in  this  sense,  may  be  ex- 
tended indefinitely "  without-  conferring  upon  observers  any  moral 
obloquy.  It  is  only  after  they  have  had  the  opportunity  to  learn  from 
professional  criticism  their  disabilities,  owing  to  their  lack  of  "technical 
knowledge  and  skill"  7i  in  this  field,  that  they  are  really  responsible  for 
the  unsoundness  of  their  conclusions.  An  aggregate  of  scientifically  un- 
trustworthy experimental  evidence  can  never  become  a  fagot  of  proof, — 
the  signs  are  all  minus. 

We  have  recently  had  a  good  illustration  of  the  fact  that  the  spread 
of  responsibility  is  no  guarantee  of  a  sound  conclusion,  even  when  the 
responsibility  is  shared  by  scientific  men  more  or  less  eminent  in  the  par- 
ticular field  of  knowledge  to  which  the  observed  phenomena  belong.  And 
since  this  episode  in  the  history  of  physical  science  also  shows  how 
potent  unrecognized  psychological  causes  are,  even  in  the  most  objective 
and  tangible  field  of  science,  we  cannot  resist  the  opportunity  to  scan  its 
lesson. 

The  "N"-Ray  Delusion. 

If  one  consults  the  various  volumes  of  Science  Abstracts,  Section  A. 
— Physics™  and  looks  through  the  indexes  under  "Rays  and  Radiations" 
for  "n-rays,"  he  finds  a  curious  fact:  Before  1904  and  since  1909  no  ab- 
stracts on  the  topic  appear;  but  beginning  with  1904,  for  each  successive 


71  Phantasms  of  the  Living,  pp.  19,  20. 

72  Cf.,  Quotation  from  Gurney,  p.  465,  supra. 

73  Cf.,  Quotation  from  Stewart,  pp.  464-5,  supra. 

74  Cf.,  Quotation  from  Sidgwick,  p.  468,  supra. 

78  Published  in  London  and  prepared  by  the  Physical  Society  of  London,  with- 
the  assistance  of  internationally  affiliated  organizations. 


496  APPENDIX   C 

year,  their  number  is  as  follows:  yy,  8,  3,  1,  o,  1.  A  closer  inspection  of 
the  literature  reveals  the  following  remarkable  history : 

Professor  Blondlot,  the  eminent  physicist  of  Nancy,  who  was  elected 
a  correspondent  of  the  Academy  of  Science  to  fill  the  vacancy  caused 
by  the  death  of  Helmholtz,  discovered  the  w-ray  (so  named  in  honor  of 
Nancy).76  The  presence  of  the  ;t-ray  was  determined  by  the  decrease 
of  the  resistance  of  a  spark-gap,  by  the  increased  glow  of  a  platinum 
wire,  by  the  increased  luminosity  of  a  phosphorescent  surface.77  It  was 
found  to  emanate  from  the  solar  radiation  and  from  bodies  in  which  it 
was  stored. 

The  discovery  was  promptly  confirmed  by  other  scientists :  C.  Gutton, 
Mascart,  Virtz,  H.  Bordier,  E.  Bichat,  J.  Meyer,  J.  Becquerel,  J.  M.  de 
Lepinay,  H.  Bagard,  E.  Rothe,  G.  Sagnac,  and  others.  As  investigation 
progressed  n-ray  knowledge  became  more  refined  and  hypotheses  more 
complex ;  under  some  circumstances  the  phosphorescent  screen  was 
dimmed  when  it  was  expected  to  become  more  luminous,  and  n^rays 
with  antagonistic  or  contrary  effects  were  discovered.  Breydel  dis- 
cussed n,-rays.78    Ponderable  rays  or  "heavy  emissions"  were  discovered. 

Applications  of  the  new  knowledge  were  made  in  fields  outside  of 
physics.  Corson  applied  Ji-rays  to  chemistry;79  M.  Lambert  and  E.  Meyer 
studied  their  effects  upon  biological  phenomena  ;80  E.  Meyer  upon  plants  ;81 
Bohn  applied  them  to  explain  irregular  tropic  reactions  of  a  nereid ;  A. 
Charpentier  found  that  compression  of  a  nerve,  and  that  activity  in  nerve- 
centers  and  in  certain  portions  of  the  brain,  were  accompanied  by  the 
emission  of  H-rays  ;82  and  that  the  application  of  the  n-ray  to  the  seventh 
cervical  was  accompanied  by  the  dilation  of  the  pupil  varying  from  0.5 
mm.  to  1  mm.  ;83  that  its  application  to  the  sense-organs  or  the  proper 
nerve-centers  lowered  the  threshold  of  sensitivity;84  that  the  maximum 
effect  as  shown  by  the  screen  was  obtained  by  application  of  the  n-ray 
to  the  Rolandic  region  of  the  skull;86  G.  Ballet  observed  the  emission  of 


76  Vide,  Blondlot :     "N"  Rays.    Tr.  by  Garcin.    London,  1905. 

77  The   determinations   had   to  be   made  by  the  eye   since  the  n-ray  gave  no 
photographic  effect. 

78  Electr.    Paris,  1904,  41 :  325. 

79  Comptcs  Rcndus  des  Seances  de  I'Academie  des  Sciences,  1904,  138:1423-5. 

80  Ibid.,  pp.  1284-5. 

81  Ibid.,  pp.  1 01 -2,  272-3. 

82  Ibid.,  1903,  137 :  1277-80. 
&3Ibid.,  1904,  138:270-2. 

84  Ibid.,  pp.  584-6,  648.     This  fact  explained  to  Blondlot  why  the  change  in 
luminosity  affected  the  eye  and  not  the  photographic  plate. 
8»  Ibid.,  pp.  715-7- 


GROUNDS  FOR  SCIENTIFIC  CAUTION  497 

n-rays  from  the  pathological  portions  of  the  nervous  system  ;86  A.  Broca 
studied  the  relation  between  n-rays  and  the  brain;87  A.  Broca  and  A. 
Zimmern  studied  the  condition  of  the  spinal  cord  as  shown  by  n-ray 
emission  ;88  and  it  appears  that  M.  di  Brazza,  a  student  at  Liege,  discov- 
ered rays  emitted  from  an  active  brain  which  differing  from  the  n-ray 
he  called  i-rays  (in  honor  of  Italy).89 

In  spite  of  this  generous  "spread  of  responsibility"  the  literature 
contributed  adverse  criticism;  other  physicists  carefully  repeated  Blond- 
lot's  experiments  and  found  no  n-rays:  Donath  at  Berlin,  Kaufmann  at 
Bonn,  Clossen  at  Hamburg,  Pacini  at  Rome,  and  Zahn,  O.  Lummer,  C. 
C.  Schenck,  E.  Gehrcke,  W.  A.  Nagel,  Rudge,  McKendrick  and  Col- 
quhoun,  F.  Bonola,  G.  Cavina,  A.  Turpain,  E.  Salvioni,  A.  A.  C.  Swin- 
ton,  among  others.  The  situation  was  precarious.  The  w-rays  could  not 
be  found  outside  of  France,  and  the  discussion  threatened  to  take  on 
the  color  of  a  national  issue.  In  the  latter  part  of  1904  (November  5 
to  December  10)  the  Revue  Scientifique  made  a  census  of  opinion  re- 
vealing a  substantial  number  of  French  scientists  among  the  opposition. 

The  potency  of  unrecognized  psychological  causes  for  error  is 
shown  by  the  head-long  course  of  the  n-ray  delusion  in  the  face  of  cur- 
rent criticism  that  pointed  out  the  error  specifically.  As  early  as  Jan- 
uary 21,  1904,  A.  A.  C.  Swinton,  who  had  repeated  most  of  Blondlot's 
experiments  without  finding  a  trace  of  the  phenomena  described  by 
Blondlot,  suggested  90  that  the  observations  must  be  due  not  to  physical 
but  to  physiological  processes,  which  are  not  operative  in  the  case  of  all 
persons ;  and  on  June  4,  1904,  E.  Salvioni,  who  having  had  poor  success 
in  reproducing  Blondlot's  phenomena  had  turned  to  studying  the 
subjective  sources  of  error,  announced  91  his  conclusion  that  a  particular 
condition  of  sensibility  is  required ;  that  the  phenomena  are  comparable 
to  the  luminous  phenomena  of  the  so-called  animal  magnetism,  and  odic 
force.  A.  Turpain  made  a  number  of  observations  in  order  to  detect 
the  action  of  n-rays  upon  a  phosphorescent  screen,  using  all  the  supposed 
sources  of  n-rays,  such  as  a  Nernst  lamp,  a  file,  and  a  magnetic  or  Hertz- 
ian field,  and  the  affirmative  results  amounted  to  80%  ;  but  on  arrang- 
ing the  experiments  in  such  a  manner  that  the  observer  did  not  know 


86 /bid.,  pp.  S24-6. 

87  Ibid.,  pp.  1161-3. 

88  Ibid.,  pp.  1239-41. 

89  Harper's  Weekly,  1905,  49 :  69. 

90  Nature,  69 :  272. 

*i  Atti  delta  R.  accademia  dei  lincei.    Roma,  13:610-6,  703-6. 


498  APPENDIX   C 

whether  the  action  of  n-rays  was  to  be  expected  or  not,  he  found  that 
the  affirmative  results  were  reduced  to  50%,  thus  showing  that  self-sug- 
gestion plays  the  most  decisive  part  in  them.92  And  R.  W.  Wood,  of 
Johns  Hopkins  University,  when  in  France,  visited  a  laboratory  to  wit- 
ness the  phenomena,  and  found  that  when  the  observer  did  not  know 
what  to  expect  his  observations  were  in  error.93 

Physicists  are  agreed  that  the  n-ray  is  a  delusion.94  All  of  its  phe- 
nomena have  been  assimilated  to  known  causes.  But  a  delusion,  once 
supported  by  men  of  eminence,  is  well-nigh  immortal ;  it  will  find  its 
adherents  in  men  eminent  in  other  fields  and  in  the  intelligent  but  non- 
technical public ;  its  applications  ever  grow  in  variety.  It  is  likely  that 
n-rays  will  still  be  used  to  measure  the  wave  length  of  oscillations  in  the 
nerve  of  a  frog;  to  locate  and  diagnose  pathological  conditions  of  the 
body;  to  find  and  identify  overtones;  to  determine  the  psychic  power  of 
a  person ;  to  analyze  his  character ; 95  to  explain  telepathy, — for  are  not 
the  emissions  of  n-rays  from  the  brain  the  long  suspected  "brain- 
waves"? At  any  rate  "brain-waves"  have  been  often  suggested911  as  ex- 
planatory of  telepathy,  the  transmission  of  thought  by  radiation  has  been 
studied,97  and,  finally,  n-rays  have  been  employed  to  explain  telepathy.9* 
Tunzelmann,  five  years  after  the  hypothesis  had  been  officially  buried, 
accounted  for  the  transference  of  images  from  his  family  circle  to  his 
own  mind,  in  a  few  thought-transference  experiments  he  was  inspired 
to  try  after  reading  Hudson's  "Law  of  Psychic  Phenomena,"  by  the 
n-rays  traversing  the  closed  eyelids  and  the  skull  (p.  628)." 


B* Bulletin  des  Seances  a  la  Societe  Francaise  de  Physique,  1906,  1:94-100. 

93  Vide,  Harper's  Weekly,  1905,  49:  57-8. 

94  Vide,  G.  F.  Stradling:  A  resume  of  the  literature  of  the  H-rays,  the  n  - 
rays,  the  physiological  rays,  and  the  heavy  emission.  Journal  of  the  Franklin  In- 
stitute, Philadelphia,  1907,  164:57-74,  113-130,  177-199.  Reference  is  made  to  278 
articles. 

95  Hooker  says  the  emitted  rays  from  a  passionate  man  have  a  red  hue;  from 
a  well-intentioned  man,  pink ;    cf..  Lancet,  London,  October  1904.  2 :  1380. 

96  J.  T.  K. :  Spectator,  January  30,  1869,  pp.  136-7 ;  cf.,  also,  ibid.,  133-4 ; 
Barrett,  Gurney,  and  Myers:  Phantasms  of  the  Living,  vol.  I,  pp.  11 1-2;  Nine- 
teenth Century,  1882,  11:900;  Mark  Twain:  Harper's  Monthly,  December  1891, 
84  :  100  ff. ;  Crookes  :  Proceedings  S.  P.  R.,  1896-97  ;  12  :  352  ff. ;  Podmore  :  Nat- 
uralization of  the  Supernatural,  1908,  p.  11;  Barrett:  Psychical  Research,  1911, 
pp.  107  f. 

07  Benigni :     Observation  sur  la  propagation  de  la  pensee  par  radiation. 

98Keraval:  Rayons  n  et  transmission  de  la  pensee,  Echo  Med.,  1904,  p.  51; 
Tunzelmann :  A  Treatise  on  Electrical  Theory.  London,  1910.  Appendix  R,  pp. 
626-632. 

»»  Op.  cit. 


GROUNDS  FOR  SCIENTIFIC  CAUTION  499 

The  chief  lessons  to  be  drawn  from  this  brief  narrative  are: 
( i )  That  "spread  of  responsibility"  in  establishing  a  matter  of  fact, 
even  in  a  field  where  the  facts  are  regularly  identified  by  wholly  objec- 
tive criteria,  and  even  when  the  experimenters  are  men  of  eminence  in 
the  field  to  which  the  observed  phenomena  properly  belong,  is  no  guar- 
antee of  the  existence  of  the  alleged  fact,  unless  the  responsibility  is 
shared  by  the  main  body  of  authorities  in  that  field;  the  "fagot  theory" 
is  fallacious. 

(2)  That  unrecognized  psychological  sources  of  error  are  potent  for 
delusion,  even  when  the  investigators  are  familiar  not  only  with  the  ex- 
perimental method,  but  also  with  the  field  of  phenomena  in  which  they 
are  working,  and  even  when  the  sources  of  error  are  specifically  pointed 
out  by  capable  critics. 

(3)  And  that  since  the  investigators  may  be  unable  to  profit  from 
the  critics,  it  would  seem  that,  where  psychological  sources  of  error  are 
concerned,  some  experience  in  experimental  psychology  is  necessary  in 
order  to  understand  precisely  what  the  endangering  psychological  pro- 
cesses are  and  how  to  reckon  with  them  in  the  control  of  experimental 
conditions. 

Conclusion. 

Recurring  to  the  general  problem  of  the  trustworthiness  of  the  ex- 
istent evidence  for  telepathy,  the  reader  has  probably  found  in  this  ap- 
pendix sufficient  grounds  for  scientific  caution. 

The  best  of  the  evidence,  that  which  won  over  the  agnostic  members 
of  the  Committee  of  the  S.  P.  R.  to  the  belief  in  thought-transference  to 
a  normal  percipient,  and  which  occupied  first  place  in  the  Society's 
authoritative  Proceedings,  has  suffered  a  fatal  decline.  The  Committee 
showed  caution  in  guarding  against  fraud  and  error  and  expressed  their 
belief  that  both  had  been  eliminated.  Contemporaneous  critics  pointed 
out  the  possible  operation  of  both,  and  challenged  the  trustworthiness  of 
the  results.  Collusion  was  later  confessed  by  one  or  more  of  the  parties 
to  the  experiments  in  both  of  the  principal  series.  As  against  the  pre- 
sumption of  false  confession,  or  a  segregation  of  untainted  results,  there 
remains  in  the  published  records  of  both  series  of  experiments  internal 
evidence  of  the  use  of  code.  Within  three  years  of  the  conclusion  of 
both  series,  the  Society  apparently  sought  to  suppress  their  re-publica- 
tion, although  it  has  permitted  recent  resumes  of  both.  The  Committee 
fully  expected  to  have  those  most  successful  results  freely  verified  in 
further  and  more  stringently  controlled  experiments  with  the  same  and 


500  APPENDIX    C 

with  other  favorable  percipients;  and  also  to  find  in  the  course  of  in- 
vestigation a  general  distribution  of  the  telepathic  capacity  among  nor- 
mal persons.  Their  own  percipients  suddenly  declined  to  continue  the 
experiments,  supporting  the  hypothesis  of  collusion,  the  successful  re- 
sults have  never  been  equaled  with  other  percipients,  and  the  imposing 
mass  of  experimental  results  published  from  other  centers  of  investiga- 
tion, not  to  mention  a  very  considerable  amount  of  negative  results 
which  has  come  to  the  notice  of  the  Society  and  which  it  has  declined 
to  publish,100  controverts  the  expectation  of  the  Committee  that  the  tele- 
pathic capacity  is  common. 

The  best  of  the  Society's  evidence  for  thought-transference  to  a 
hypnotized  percipient  was  obtained  under  unsatisfactory  conditions :  In- 
stead of  employing  as  hypnotist  and  agent  a  scientific  man,  such  as  Dr. 
Bramwell,  who  was  also  one  of  its  members,  the  Society  employed  a 
young  man  who  had  previously  been  engaged  in  giving  public  demon- 
strations of  hypnotism  and  of  thought-reading,  and  who  was  a  party  to 
one  of  the  series  of  experiments  which  was  later  suppressed  by  the  So- 
ciety and  which,  according  to  the  internal  evidence  of  the  published  re- 
ports, depended  upon  collusion  in  the  use  of  code  for  its  successful 
results. 

Apart  from  the  unsatisfactory  nature  of  the  results  of  the  experi- 
ments, the  general  conduct  of  the  investigation  casts  discredit  upon  the 
conclusions  drawn  from  the  data.  Appeal  was  constantly  made  for  the 
assistance  of  incompetent  investigators,  which,  besides  facilitating  the 
accumulation  of  results  which  must  be  entirely  untrustworthy  through 
gross  error  in  procedure  and  records,  encouraged  skilled  collusionists  to 
match  wits  with  the  Society's  representatives  in  a  contest  so  unequal  that 
positive  results  of  a  spurious  character  were  insured.  The  "fagot  theory" 
which  provided  for  a  "proof"  of  telepathy  by  the  "spread  of  responsibil- 
ity" over  so  large  a  number  of  reputable  persons  in  the  control  of  the 
various  series  of  successful  experiments  that  it  would  be  easier  to  believe 
that  telepathy  is  a  fact  than  to  believe  that  all  of  the  reputable  persons 
were  in  error,  is  fallacious,  in  that  the  difficulties  involved  in  such  investi- 
gation were  not  duly  appreciated. 

The  "spread  of  responsibility"  for  the  establishment  of  the  psycho- 
logical phenomenon  of  telepathy  is  much  inferior  to  the  "spread  of  re- 
sponsibility" for  the  establishment  of  the  physical  phenomenon  of  the 
n-ray,  since  many  men  eminent  in  the  field  of  physics  were  involved  in 


100  Vide,  quotation  from  Thomas,  p.  26,  supra. 


GROUNDS  FOR  SCIENTIFIC  CAUTION  501 

the  latter,  and  but  very  few  eminent  experimental  psychologists  are  in- 
volved in  the  former,  yet  the  body  of  competent  physicists  agree  that  the 
M-ray  was  a  delusion.  Unless  the  "spread  of  responsibility"  for  telep- 
athy can  be  extended  to  include  the  main  body  of  experimental  psychol- 
ogists, telepathy  will  certainly  share  the  fate  of  the  w-ray,  and  the  text- 
books in  the  history  of  psychology  will  speak  of  the  "thought-transfer- 
ence delusion."  In  the  one  case,  x-rays  could  be  found  only  by  physi- 
cists, in  physical  laboratories,  in  France  in  1904-6;  in  the  other,  thought- 
transference  could  be  found  only  by  eminent  men  who  were  not  psy- 
chologists, in  places  other  than  psychological  laboratories,  in  England 
and  Ireland  in  1882-92. 

The  reader  should  not  regard  the  body  of  psychologists  as  standing 
firmly  upon  the  laws  of  the  "isolated  conductivity"  of  the  neurons,  the 
"centripetal"  course  of  nervous  impulse  in  hallucination,  and  the  inviol- 
ability of  the  sensorial  gateway,  and  dogmatically  decreeing  telepathy  out 
of  existence  ;  the  psychologists  recognize  the  possibilities  of  advancement 
of  knowledge  in  their  field  and  they  would  survive  telepathy,  should  it  ap- 
pear with  the  proper  credentials.  They  would  even  welcome  it  with 
open  arms,  just  as  physicists  have  welcomed  a,  (3,  and  y  rays.  Their 
agnosticism  is  scientific,  not  dogmatic. 

Neither  should  the  reader  get  the  impression  that  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research  has  not  justified  its  existence,  for  it  has  been  of  great 
service  to  mankind,  particularly  in  helping  it  to  rid  itself  of  fraud  and 
delusion,  and  in  stimulating  neglected  lines  of  research  from  which  great 
benefits  are  sure  to  come.  No  final  or  decisive  knowledge  concerning 
telepathy  would  have  been  likely  for  centuries  had  it  not  stimulated  di- 
rect research  in  it.  Even  the  errors  in  its  investigations  are  of  value  in 
compelling  a  more  accurate  definition  of  the  scientific  method,  and  in  il- 
lustrating our  utter  dependence  upon  this  method  for  sound  knowledge 
of  all  matters  pertaining  to  the  phenomenal  world. 

The  errors  made  in  the  conduct  of  the  investigation  of  thought- 
transference  bear  to  present  and  future  investigators  a  valuable  lesson 
for  which  credit  is  due  the  eminent  members  of  the  Committee :  tech- 
nical experience  in  experimental  psychology  is  requisite  both  for  the 
control  of  the  experiments  and  for  the  interpretation  of  the  results.  It 
is  to  their  credit  that  the  questionable  evidence  was  suppressed,  and  it  is 
regrettable  that  any  members  of  the  Society  promote  the  telepathic  hy- 
pothesis while  it  occupies  so  questionable  a  status.  Unfortunately,  so 
long  as  there  is  so  great  a  disparity  in  the  capacities  of  the  various  stu- 
dents of  the  problem  of  telepathy  to  properly  evaluate  the  evidence  in 


502  APPENDIX   C 

the  experimental  results,  so  long  may  the  interested  and  inquiring  public 
expect  to  be  presented  with  opinions  as  varying  and  contradictory  as  are 
the  following: 

Professor  W.  F.  Barrett,  in  191 1: 

Thought-transference  ...  is  not,  in  my  judgment,  a  subject  of  controversy. 
It  is  established  beyond  the  possibility  of  challenge  to  those  who  will  really  exam- 
ine the  evidence.101 

Ivor  LI.  Tuckett,  in  1912: 

In  spite  of  Professor  Barrett's  dictum,  the  fact  remains  that  several  of  the 
more  critical  psychical  researchers  who  have  thoroughly  examined  the  evidence 
have  ultimately  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  case  for  telepathy  is  completely 
unproven.102 

Professor  C.  S.  Minot,  in  1895 : 

After  a  thorough  examination  of  the  evidence  adduced,  I  am  brought  to  the 
conclusion  that  thought-transference,  even  as  a  hypothetical  explanation,  is  a  su- 
perfluous conception.103 

Professor  G.  Stanley  Hall,  in  1896: 

We  are  profoundly  convinced  [that]  the  entire  telepathic  presumption  is  yet 
very  far  from  being  a  prima  facie  case,  is  premature  at  best,  and  that  it  is  at  pres- 
ent with  its  rank  mazes  of  mystic  guess-work  a  source  of  befuddlement  and  ob- 
fuscation.104 

Accepting  Professor  Sidgwick's  dictum  that  the  agreement  of  ex- 
perts must  be  the  final  test,105  the  statement  of  Gurney  that  the  standard 
of  evidence  must  be  drawn  from  the  recognized  departments  of  knowl- 
edge,106 together  with  Professor  Sidgwick's  definition  of  sufficient  evi- 
dence,107 it  is  certainly  true  that  the  Society,  on  account  of  its  fiascoes 
and  its  persistent  lack  of  psychological  vision,  is  immeasurably  farther 
from  its  goal  today  than  it  was  in  1886,  in  its  effort  to  produce  proof  of 
thought-transference. 

Hope  for  the  Society  lies  in  adopting  the  program  of  the  Hermit  of 
Prague  108  and  in  cooperating  with  a  psychological  laboratory. 


101  London  Daily  News,  September  6,  191 1  ;    quoted  in  Bedrock,  1  :  180- 1. 

102  Bedrock,  1 :  193. 

103  North  American  Review,  160:227. 

104  American  Journal  of  Psychology,  7:137.  For  other  quotations  from  stu- 
dents of  the  experimental  data,  vide,  "The  Present  Status  of  Telepathy,"  in  Part 
I,  pp.  17  ff.,  supra. 

105  Supra,  p.  468. 

106  Supra,  p.  462. 
10'  Supra,  p.  463. 
108  Supra,  p.  28. 


APPENDIX  D. 


INVESTIGATION  WITH  A  "TRUMPET"  MEDIUM. 

In  the  Autumn  of  1913  the  writer  (The  Fellow  in  Psychical  Research)  be- 
came a  member  of  the  California  Psychical  Research  Society,  the  object  of  which 
is,  as  stated  in  its  Constitution,  "to  carry  on  and  to  promote  investigation  of  psy- 
chical and  supernormal  phenomena,"  and  "to  develop  a  scientific  interpretation  of 
them."  Owing  to  the  compatibility  of  the  aim  of  the  Society  with  the  purposes 
of  the  Division  of  Psychical  Research,  a  program  of  cooperative  research  was  im- 
mediately entered  upon.  After  a  season's  work,  in  accordance  with  a  provision 
of  the  Constitution  that  "The  Reports  of  the  investigation  committee  shall  be  fur- 
nished the  members,"  the  following  Report  was  drawn  up,  read  to  the  Society, 
accepted,  and  printed.  As  internal  evidence  will  show,  its  main  purpose  was  (a) 
to  illustrate  a  scientific  method  of  investigation,  (b)  to  make  specific,  through  its 
preliminary  findings,  certain  critical  problems  for  research,  and  (c)  to  propose  a 
program  for  continued  investigation  which  should  be  of  scientific  value.  Although 
the  Report  was  addressed  to  the  Society  and  its  form  was  largely  determined  by 
the  need  of  arousing  the  members  to  a  consciousness  of  the  importance  of  scien- 
tific work,  its  method  and  program  were  thought  to  be  of  sufficient  interest  to 
students  of  psychical  research  to  warrant  its  permanent  record  in  professional 
publications. 

The  writer  acted  as  experimenter  for  the  investigation  committee,  and  as- 
sisted in  drawing  up  the  report. 


INVESTIGATION  WITH  A  "TRUMPET"  MEDIUM.1 
By  the  California  Psychical  Research   Society. 

Mrs.   Key,2  who  has  given   series  of  seances  before  psychical  so- 
cieties  and   prominent   investigators   in   Boston,   Paris,   and   California, 


1  This  report  is  reprinted  in  a  slightly  revised  form  from  the  Proceedings 
of  the  American  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  New  York,  1914,  8:201-252. 
Obligations  to  the  American  Society  are  hereby  acknowledged. 

2  The  identity  of  the  psychic  the  Society  withholds  for  the  reason  that  her 
reputation  as  a  semi-professional  medium  might  suffer  temporary  injury  through 
the  experimenter's  part  of  this  preliminary  report.  References  in  the  literature 
of  psychical  research,  the  names  of  organizations  and  investigators,  the  places  of 
investigation,  and  the  names  of  the  psychic's  customary  controls,  consequently, 
cannot  be  specifically  given  in  this  report. 

503 


504  APPENDIX  D 

placed  herself  without  pay  at  the  service  of  the  California  Psychical  Re- 
search Society  for  investigation  of  the  phenomena  which  occur  in  her 
presence. 

She  is  an  American  gentlewoman  of  refinement  and  culture,  and  is 
known  to  her  closest  friends  for  her  high  moral  character,  and  to  the 
members  of  the  Society  for  her  sincere  and  whole-hearted  cooperation 
in  investigation. 

That  she  is  to  be  classed  as  one  of  the  more  remarkable  psychics 
of  this  generation  is  attested  by  the  various  reports  upon  the  investiga- 
tion of  her  phenomena,  and  by  members  of  our  Society. 

A  noted  student  of  psychical  research,  after  several  sittings  with 
her,  brought  her  to  the  attention  of  investigating  bodies.  He  published 
in  1892  a  report  in  which  he  stated  that  she  was  entirely  disconnected  in 
a  physical  way  from  the  phenomena  which  occurred  about  her ;  and 
that  she  not  only  cheerfully  submitted  to  crucial  conditions  but  welcomed 
"tests."  In  the  subsequent  investigation,  involving  many  sittings,  the 
report  of  which  was  published  in  the  following  year,  objects  several  feet 
beyond  her  reach,  according  to  measurement,  were  moved,  handled,  and 
deftly  manipulated  in  touching  the  sitters  in  the  dark;  writing  occurred 
on  books  and  sheets  of  paper ;  raps  were  intelligently  given,  and 
"trumpet"  voices  spoke.  Before  the  phenomena  began,  the  psychic  had 
been  bound  and  the  bindings  sealed  to  her  chair,  and  after  the  seance 
was  over,  all  bindings  were  found  to  be  intact.  One  of  the  eminent  wit- 
nesses saw  the  hand  of  the  control,  which  had  just  written  upon  a  book, 
pass,  upon  request,  rapidly  up  and  down,  with  fingers  outspread,  between 
himself  and  a  streak  of  light,  six  feet  from  the  psychic's  left  hand. 

A  noted  doctor,  upon  another  occasion,  in  1907,  recorded  in  a  repu- 
table journal  his  astonishment  at  the  precision  of  the  movement  of  the 
trumpet  in  the  dark,  while  the  psychic  was  securely  bound  to  her  chair. 

An  investigator  of  international  reputation  attests  to  the  power  of 
prevision  on  the  part  of  her  controls.  He  had  arrangements  made  for  a 
journey,  with  a  ticket  in  his  pocket  determining  a  definite  route.  He 
was  told  in  the  seance  communications  that  he  would  make  the  journey, 
but  that  he  would  not  take  that  route  and  that  many  things  of  a  most 
unusual  and  unexpected  nature  were  to  occur.  All  these  events,  not  in 
the  least  capable  of  being  influenced  by  any  state  of  his  mind  aroused 
by  the  astonishing  prophecies,  transpired. 

Some  of  the  members  of  our  Society  who  have  had  sittings  with  the 
more  renowned  psychics  at  home  and  abroad  attest  that  both  the  psy- 
chical and  the  physical  phenomena  which  occur  in  this  psychic's  presence 
are  equal  to  any  they  have  ever  witnessed. 


INVESTIGATION    WITH    A   "TRUMPET"   MEDIUM  505 

The  Society  is  confident,  therefore,  that  the  phenomena  it  is  inves- 
tigating are  of  the  highest  order,  and  that  its  findings  will  in  no  sense 
descend  to  the  common  expose  of  conscious  fraud,  but  will  make  a  sub- 
stantial contribution  to  knowledge  in  this  field. 

Investigation  began  in  September,  1913,  (after  November  1st,  in  the 
rooms  of  the  Society,  at  320  Market  street,  San  Francisco)  and  con- 
tinued until  May  9,  1914.  The  seances  were  held  Saturday  afternoons, 
usually  from  2  to  5  o'clock,  in  complete  darkness.  The  number  of  sitters 
varied  from  3  to  12,  but  usually  numbered  about  8. 

Owing  to  the  alleged  difficulty  of  keeping  "test"  conditions  for  the 
customary  phenomena,  the  Society  resolved  to  use  methods  of  investiga- 
tion similar  to  those  employed  abroad  with  Eusapia  Palladino,3  and  in 
March  Dr.  Coover,  with  whom  the  Society  has  been  cooperating  through- 
out the  year  in  investigating  clairvoyant  and  telepathic  capacity  in  psy- 
chics,4 consented  to  undertake  the  experimenter's  task  of  providing  and 
controlling  such  scientific  instruments  as  are  calculated  to  portray  accur- 
ately and  objectively  what  takes  place.     His  report  follows: 

DR.  COOVER'S  REPORT. 

The  writer  feels  a  bit  apologetic  in  reporting  upon  the  investigation 
of  "physical  phenomena,"  not  only  because  its  history  is  unsavory,  but 
because  he  had  resolutely  set  himself  to  the  task  of  determining  whether 
"psychics"  possess  clairvoyant  or  telepathic  powers,  and  of  subjecting 
whatever  processes  should  come  to  hand  to  psychological  analysis  and 
study.  His  apparatus  consisted  of  a  pack  of  playing  cards  and  a  dice- 
box,  and  he  was  inclined  to  take  the  "voices"  for  what  they  proclaimed 
themselves  to  be,  so  long  as  they  would  name  his  cards. 

But  psychological  research  came  to  a  halt,  in  the  Society's  seances, 
in  an  unexpected  manner.  The  "independent"  voices,  who  could  report 
upon  the  safety  of  relatives  in  Mexico  and  could  define  the  attitude  of 
Japan  toward  the  quarreling  republics,  could  not,  even  after  months  of 
effort,  bring  themselves  to  naming  the  cards.  They  could  see  the  card 
and  they  had  the  power  of  speech,  but  they  became  completely  exhausted 
when  they  tried  to  coordinate  these  two  powers.5     It  is  understood  that 


3  Vide,  Lombroso  :  After  Death — What?  1909.  Carrington  :  Eusapia  Palla- 
dino and  her  Phenomena,  1909.     Podmore :    The  Newer  Spiritualism. 

4  Vide,  pp.  126,  footnote  197,  and  503,  supra. 

5  The  control  "Dr.  Truman"  suggested  a  possible  explanation  during  the 
seance  of  January  17,  1914:  "I  think  it  would  be  best  if  our  psychic  was  wholly 
oblivious  of  the  experiment.  Our  psychic  becomes  over-anxious,  and  we  cannot 
use  the  forces." 


506 


UTENDIX  D 


they  are  developing  for  this  kind  of  work  so  as  to  furnish  the  psychol- 
ogists of  the  world  a  "survey"  of  "spirit"  endowment  in  our  next  series 
of  investigations. 

In  the  meantime  the  customary  phenomena  were  taking  place :  the 
trumpet  was  rapped  and  levitated ;  voices  of  three  orders  gave  communi- 
cations. Material  was  at  hand  for  physiological  and  physical  investiga- 
tion. And  is  not  the  scientific  world  yet  divided  upon  Eusapia's  phe- 
nomena?6 

This  report  is  based  principally  upon  the  following  nine  consecutive 
seances : 


Date 

Instruments 

Object 

March  14,  1914. 

Telegraph    instrument. 

Code. 

March  21, 

Kymograph,  Telegraph 
instrument. 

Physical  Condition  of  the 

psychic. 

March  28,     " 

Kymograph,  Telegraph 
instrument. 

Physical  Condition  of  the 

psychic. 

April     4,        " 

Kymograph,  Telegraph 
instrument. 

Physical  Condition  of  the 

psychic. 

April  11, 

Scales. 

Weigh  psychic  force. 

April  18,        " 

" 

Weigh  psychic  force. 

April  25,        " 

" 

Weigh  psychic  force. 

May  2, 

" 

Weigh  psychic  force. 

May  9, 

Telegraph    instrument, 

Code,     finger-print,    touch 

in    enclosed 

Scales,  Smoked  paper. 

space. 

i.  Relation  of  the  "Voices"  to  the  Psychic's  Physiological 

Processes. 

The  public  has  been  informed  through  the  Proceedings''  of  the  Am. 
S.  P.  R.  and  through  the  Open  Court 8  of  the  anomalous  character  of  the 
voices  of  Mrs.  Blake,  of  Braderick,  Ohio ;  how  they  came  from  a  "trum- 
pet," in  broad  daylight,  without  apparent  lip  or  throat  movement,  when 
one  end  of  the  trumpet  is  held  at  the  medium's  ear,  in  her  hand  lying  on 
her  lap,  and  even  in  the  hands  of  her  sitters  while  the  medium  is  touch- 
ing it  with  the  tips  of  her  fingers.     And  the  investigators  have  specu- 

8  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  the  great  English  physical  scientist,  and  head  of  Birming- 
ham University,  Prof.  Chas.  Richet,  the  great  French  physiologist,  Cesare  Lom- 
broso,  the  great  Italian  criminologist,  besides  other  eminent  scientists,  including, 
I  believe,  some  psychologists  (colleagues  of  Mosso),  defend  the  hypothesis  that 
Eusapia's  phenomena  are  produced  otherwise  than  through  the  normal  direct 
agency  of  the  psychic. 

7  The  case  of  Mrs.  Blake.     Proceedings  Am.  S.P.R.,  1913,  7:570-788. 

8  David  P.  Abbott :  The  history  of  a  strange  case ;  a  study  in  occultism. 
Open  Court,  May  and  June,  1908. 


INVESTIGATION    WITH    A  "TRUMPET"   MEDIUM  507 

lated  upon  the  part  the  eustachian  tube  and  the  bones  of  the  head  play 
in  their  production.  Dr.  Guthrie  puts  the  alternatives:  "The  conversa- 
tion is  either  produced  by  Mrs.  Blake  talking  through  her  ear  or  by  the 
voice  of  a  denizen  of  the  other  world."  9 

The  public  has  also  been  made  acquainted  with  the  wonderful 
trumpet  voice  of  Mrs.  S.  which  spoke  by  the  hour  to  the  sitters  in  Mr. 
B.  O.  Flower's  house  while  the  psychic  was  securely  bound  to  her  chair, 
and  her  hands  and  feet  tied  with  tape  which  was  tacked  to  the  chair  and 
to  the  floor.  Mr.  Hamlin  Garland  attested  that  "so  far  as  touch  and  hear- 
ing go,  Mrs.  S.'s  arms  and  feet  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  (in  any 
ordinary  way)  with  the  movement  of  the  cone  [trumpet]."  10 

And  the  public  has  also  learned  of  the  marvelous  independent  voice 
of  the  young  Miss  Burton,  that  is  said  to  sing  simultaneously  with  the 
exquisite  independent  whistling,11  and  to  be  produced  by  a  throat  which 
when  inspected,  in  the  dark,  two  feet  from  that  of  the  psychic,  had  the 
power  of  forming  and  removing,  at  command,  an  enlargement  of  a  sub- 
lingual gland  similar  to  the  psychic's  own  swollen  gland.12 

As  to  the  exact  manner  in  which  these  voices  are  produced,  there  is 
difference  of  opinion.  Professor  Hyslop  represents  psychological  opinion 
in  regarding  "independent"  voices  as  automatic  vocal  activity  for  which 
the  psychic  has  anesthesia:  she  hears  the  voices,  but  not  feeling  her 
vocal  organs  in  operation,  or,  I  suppose,  her  breathing  change,  she  must 
take  them  to  be  "independent."  But,  and  this  is  the  point,  investigation 
has  not  yet  fastened  the  production  of  the  voices  upon  Mrs.  Blake,  al- 
though Professor  Hyslop  thinks  it  probable  that  her  vocal  organs  operate 
incipiently  in  sympathetic  rapport  with  them,  since  he,  upon  one  occa- 
sion, was  able  to  observe  that  slight  action  of  her  vocal  organs  accom- 
panied the  muffled  sounds  in  the  trumpet.  And  the  sitters  of  the  Society's 
seances,  with  possibly  a  few  exceptions,  have  satisfied  themselves  of  the 
actual  independence  of  the  voices  produced  by  our  psychic. 

A  good  method  of  determining  the  facts  seems  desirable,  and  the 
writer  believes  that  respiration  curves  and  pulse  curves,  although  rather 
difficult  to  manage,  especially  in  conjunction  with  a  signal-recorder  and 
a  time-marker,  go  a  long  way  toward  meeting  this  end. 

The  sitters  in  the  Society's  dark  seances  hear  whispered  or  aspirated 


»  Proceedings  Am.  S.  P.  R.,  7  ■  586- 

10  Report  of  dark  seances,  with  a  non-professional  psychic,  for  voices  and  the 
movement  of  objects  without  contact.     Psychical  Review,  1894,  2:152-177. 

11  Proceedings  Am.S.P.R.,  1911,  5  :  °a 

12  Journal  Am.  S.  P.  R.,  1909,  3 :  710. 


508  APPENDIX  D 

voices  ringing  through  the  trumpet  with  a  distinct  metallic  quality,  and 
whispered  voices  of  less  intensity  coming  out  of  the  air,  both  of  which 
are  located  variously  anywhere  in  the  room,  and  variously  by  the  differ- 
ent sitters  in  any  given  instance,  but  usually  their  source  is  granted  to  be 
in  the  upper  air  of  the  center  of  the  room,  beyond  the  reach  of  the 
psychic.  These  two  kinds  of  voices  are  "independent,''  but  shall  be  dis- 
tinguished in  this  report  by  calling  them  "trumpet"  and  "independent" 
voices,  respectively.  There  is  in  addition  to  these  an  "automatic"  voice, 
of  a  little  girl,  which  is  not  whispered  or  aspirated,  but  vocalized  nat- 
urally, and  is  produced  through  the  psychic's  vocal  organs. 

The  relation  of  all  these  voices  to  the  psychic's  physiological  pro- 
cesses is  perhaps  more  than  suggested  by  the  curves  reproduced  on  the 
following  pages,  which  were  taken  with  apparatus  brought  to  the 
seance-room  in  the  first  instance  for  studying  the  psychic's  physical  con- 
dition during  the  production  of  seance  phenomena ;  it  was  intended  to 
record  any  changes  in  the  rate  or  character  of  the  pulse  or  in  the  ampli- 
tude or  character  of  the  respiration,  and  thus  determine  deviation  from 
normal  condition. 

The  apparatus  (Fig.  8)  consists  of  (i)  a  kymograph,  the  drum  of 
which  was  turned  by  clockwork  so  as  to  move  the  smoked  paper  on  its 
surface  at  the  rate  of  1.5  cm.  per  second;  (2)  a  Marey  tambour  with  a 
writing-finger  actuated  by  a  capsule  (sphygmograph )  fastened  over  the 
carotid  artery  by  bands  of  tape  around  the  neck,  for  recording  the  pulse ; 
(3)  another  Marey  tambour,  actuated  by  a  pneumograph  fastened 
around  the  chest,  for  recording  the  respiration;  (4)  a  vibrating  time- 
marker  recording  fifths  of  seconds;  (5*)  a  writing-finger,  controlled  by 
the  experimenter,  for  making  signals  on  the  drum  at  the  moment  phe- 
nomena occurred.  The  writing-fingers  were  set  in  a  line  vertically  to 
the  movement  of  the  smoked  paper  on  the  drum  and  all  made  their  rec- 
ords synchronously  whenever  the  drum  was  started  by  releasing  the 
brake. 

Records  were  taken  throughout  three  seances  (March  21,  28,  April 
4).  Owing  to  the  impossibility  of  changing  paper  on  the  drum  during 
a  seance,  all  records  taken  during  the  three  hours  of  the  seance  had  to 
be  made  on  one  smoked  paper,  necessitating  a  shifting  of  the  drum  so  as 
to  gain  the  length  of  three  or  four  circumferences,  which  resulted  in  the 
records  tracing  over  each  other  to  some  extent,  thus  making  their  direct 
reproduction  unsuitable  for  illustrative  purposes.  (Figure  9  shows  the 
records  taken  March  28th  and  April  4th,  the  size  being  reduced  to  .34 
diameters.)     But  all  records  are  distinct,  easily  identified,  and  can  be  ac- 


w 


.a 
3 


£    H 


H 


bo 
E 


INVESTIGATION    WITH   A  'TRUMPET      MEDIUM 


509 


curately  reproduced  by  tracing  them  through  carbon  paper  in  their  syn- 
chronous groups. 

The  following  tables  of  records  for  the  three  seances  show  the  num- 
ber of  records  taken,  the  number  of  respirations  or  the  characteristic  of 
the  respiration  curve,  the  number  of  pulse  beats  or  the  characteristic  of 
the  pulse  curve,  the  length  of  the  record  in  seconds,  the  condition  of  the 
psychic  and  the  phenomena  present  during  the  interval  of  the  record. 
"Trance"  here  merely  indicates  that  the  psychic  is  in  readiness  for  phe- 
nomena to  occur,  and  not  that  the  trance  state  was  known  to  be  present. 
"Katie"  is  an  "automatic"  voice,  "General  Roland"  and  "Dr.  Truman" 
are  "trumpet"  voices,  and  "Professor  James"  is  an  "independent"  voice. 


Records  of  March  21. 

Pneumograph  Sphygmograph  Time                  Phenomena 

3.5  12.2  10.4              Normal ;     silent. 

4  +  Irreg.  12.3  +  Irreg.          10.6  +  7.2  Normal :     silent  +  speaking. 

Very  Weak  (Trace)  196              Trance;    quiet. 

4  Reg.   Weak*  ....                          9.6             Trance,    (Sitters    singing). 
*....                                                         2.0             Trance. 

(After  No.  5  the  table  vibrated,  Mrs.  L.  was  touched  by  the  trumpet,  papers 

on  the  table  were  moved,  the  telegraph  instrument  was  operated.) 


No 
/. 

2. 

3- 
4- 
5- 


P- 

10. 
11. 
12. 


(Trace) 

5  Reg.  Weak 

3 

2  Very   Weak 


(Trace) 


(7l/2  resp.) 


15.8 

16.8 

8.0 

7-4 
15.6 

8.6 
25.2 


Trance ; 

sitters 
Trance ; 

ing. 
Trance ; 
Trance ; 
Waking 


during     and     after 

singing. 

Wm.   James   speak- 


Katie  speaking. 

quiet, 
speaking. 
Approaching  normal. 
Normal ;    light  on. 


Records  of  March  28. 


No. 
/. 
2. 
3- 

4- 


Pneumograph 

3-7 

5-3+ 

2.2 

2.8+ 

2.4  Low,  Even 

(Tremulous) 


Sphygmograph 
16 

21+4 


Time  Phenomena 

11.6  Normal;    quiet.     Dark. 

15.4  +  3.2    Normal ;    quiet  +  speaking. 
7.6  Normal ;    quiet. 

10.0  +  2.6    Following     trance  ;      quiet  + 
speaking. 
Trance ;     quiet ;     sitters   con- 
versing. 
Trance ;    James   speaking. 


7-6 


2-9 


♦Recorder  pulled  from  the   drum  by  strain  from  the  tubing. 
tRecorder  disconnected  from  pneumograph  by  tubing  pulling  apart. 
^Recorder  pulled  from  drum,  even  though  tubing  was  clamped  to  table. 


510 


APPENDIX  D 


No. 
7- 


o. 

10. 


13- 

14- 
IS- 


Pneumograph 
Irreg. 

2  + 

Irreg. 
3 

i.7 

3  Irreg.  Greater 
amplitude. 

2  Irreg. 
Reg.  +  Irreg. 
Irreg. 


Records  of  March  28 — Continued 

Sphygmograph       Time 
13-6 


(Trace) 


Phenomena 
Trance;     Truman,    speaking 
+  quiet  +  speaking. 
9.2  Trance ;      Truman,     quiet  + 

speaking. 
12.2  Trance;  Truman,  speaking. 

14.4  Trance ;     Truman,    speaking 

+  quiet. 
7.0  Trance ;       Truman,     quiet  + 

speaking. 
14.4  Trance ;    Katie  speaking. 

9.4  Trance ;    Katie  speaking. 

1 1.2  Normal;    quiet  +  speaking. 

8.8  Normal ;    light  on. 


No. 

2. 


Pneumograph 

7-3  +  1 
1.0  +  57 

Irreg.  +  Reg. 

Irreg. 

Irreg. 

37 
Irreg. 

Low 

Reg.  +  Irreg. 

Irreg. 


Records  of  April  4. 

Time  Phenomena 

23.7  +  3.6    Normal ;    quiet  +  speaking.13 


Sphygmograph 

28.3  +  6 
Irreg.  +  Reg. 


Reg. 


Irreg. 

Irreg. 

Irreg. 

14.5 

Irreg. 


(Trace) 
Reg.  +  Irreg. 


2.8  +  17.3  Normal ;    speaking  +  quiet  + 
"No"  +  quiet. 
Normal ;     speaking  +  quiet. 
James  speaking.14 
James   speaking, 
quiet. 
Dr.  Truman  speak- 


3.1  +  4-2 

12.8 

7.6 

10.7 

18.2 


Irreg. 


46  +  3-0 
20.2  +  9 
3-8 


Trance ; 
Trance ; 
Trance ; 
Trance ; 
ing.15 
Normal. 
Normal ; 
Normal ;    speaking. 


quiet  +  speaking. 


Out  of  an  aggregate  of  37  records,  8  were  taken  when  the  psychic 
was  normal  before  phenomena  occurred,  8  when  normal  or  approaching 
normal  after  phenomena  had  ceased,  1  followed  trance  out  of  which  the 
psychic  w\s  aroused  before  phenomena  began,  7  while  the  psychic  was 
apparently  in  trance  and  was  quiet,  3  while  the  "automatic"  voice  was 
speaking,  6  while  a  "trumpet"  voice  was  speaking,  and  4  while  an  "in- 
dependent" voice  was  speaking. 


13  "No,  it  doesn't"  (in  reply  to  experimenter's  question  whether  the  apparatus 
interfered  with  the  psychic's  breathing). 

14  "I  wish  I  might  be  able  to  speak  more  distinctly  so  as  to  make  a  perfect 

record." 

16  "We  thank  you  for  your  painstaking  interest  and  [here  the  record  stopped] 

work." 


H 


INVESTIGATION    WITH    A   "TRUMPET"   MEDIUM  511 

It  would  seem  that  we  obtained  sufficient  data  to  determine  very 
accurately  the  physical  condition  of  the  psychic,  as  compared  with  her 
normal  condition,  during  the  production  of  seance  phenomena,  and  to 
state  whether  she  is  in  a  trance  state,  and  whether  the  different  kinds  of 
voices  or  whether  the  different  seance  personalities  correlate  with  the 
same  or  with  different  physical  states.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  our  data  on 
the  rate  and  amplitude  of  respiration  and  pulse  are  exceedingly  limited. 
We  have  only  7  records  of  both  respiration  and  pulse  from  which  we 
can  calculate  rate,  and  but  one  of  them  was  taken  during  trance ;  it  does 
not  show  any  significant  deviation  from  normal  records  of  other  days, 
but  it  is  higher  in  rate  of  pulse  than  the  preceding  record  of  the  same 
day,  which,  with  Record  12,  of  March  21,  indicates  an  acceleration  of 
pulse  during  the  seance ;  there  is  also  indication  that  immediately  after 
the  seance  the  rate  is  very  high  (March  21),  and  that  in  about  20  min- 
utes it  subsides  to  normal  (April  4). 

The  following  table  gives  our  complete  results  for  rate  of  respira- 
tion and  rate  of  pulse : 

Rate16  of 
Date  Record  State  Respiration  Pulse 

March  21     1  Normal  195  67 

"               2  "  16.2  66.6 

12  "  17  79 

"  Counted    just    after    seance  closed  9s 

"      28    I  Normal  18.1  79 

2  "  19  77 

April   4    1  "  17-6  68.2 

6  Trance  19-7  774 

"            Counted  20  min.  after  close  of   seance  72 

There  is  evidence  that  the  psychic's  pulse  changes  its  rate  consider- 
ably within  short  intervals  of  time;  and  the  form  of  the  respiration 
curves  indicates  a  decrease  in  amplitude  during  the  seance.  It  is  prob- 
able that  the  psychic's  physical  state  varies  much  from  normal,  but  the 
question  must  be  left  to  be  settled  by  our  further  investigation. 

The  meagerness  of  our  data  for  determining  the  physical  state  of 
the  psychic  during  seance  phenomena  resulted  from  two  causes :  ( 1 )  In 
the  records  of  March  21,  and  March  28,  there  were  blanks,  owing  to 
one  or  both  of  the  writing-fingers  being  pulled  out  of  place;  and  (2)  in 
all  of  the  records  taken  during  speaking,  either  of  the  psychic's  voice  or 

16  These  rates  are  corrected  from  the  kymograph  records  by  multiplying  by 
100/105  (Time-marker  beat  315  times  a  minute  instead  of  300  times). 


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of  the  seance  voices,  both  respiration  and  pulse  curves  are  so  much  dis- 
turbed that  they  contribute  nothing  to  our  primary  inquiry. 

The  significance  of  the  former  cause  will  be  noticed  later  in  the 
consideration  of  the  relation  of  the  physical  phenomena  to  the  psychic's 
organism;  present  interest  lies  in  the  significance  of  the  irregularity  of 
the  respiration  and  pulse  curves  during  the  speaking  of  either  the  psy- 
chic or  the  seance  voices. 

The  nature  of  this  irregularity  can  be  shown  by  records  taken  when 
the  psychic  was  normal ;  a  pair  of  curves  is  reproduced  from  each  day, 
in  Figure  10  (pp.  512  and  513). 

It  is  only  necessary  to  point  out  that  when  the  psychic  is  quiet,  the 
curves  are  regular  and  rhythmic ;  when  the  psychic  speaks,  the  pressure 
on  the  capsule  over  the  carotid  pulse  becomes  irregular  owing  to  the 
vocal  organs  interfering  with  the  bandage  around  the  neck  which  holds 
the  capsule  in  place,  and  the  tracing  becomes  so  irregular  as  to  conceal 
the  pulse — becomes  in  effect  a  voice-curve;  the  respiration  changes 
from  rhythmic  to  irregular,  inspiration  is  quicker  and  deeper  (shown  by 
the  downward  stroke  in  the  lower  curves  of  the  pairs)  and  expiration 
is  slower,  and  intermittent  or  broken  by  the  surd  consonants  (shown  by 
the  upward  stroke  which  changes  from  a  smooth  compound  curve  to  an 
irregular  line,  sometimes  almost  straight). 

The  same  irregularities  occur  in  the  respiration  and  pulse  curves  of 
the  psychic  when  the  "automatic,"  "trumpet,"  and  "independent"  voices 
speak  in  the  seance. 

Only  the  respiration  curves  can  be  shown  for  the  "automatic" 
voice,  which,  as  the  sitters  know,  uses  the  psychic's  vocal  organs.  See 
Figure  11  (p.  514). 

During  the  last  record  "Katie"  said:  "We  are  anxious  to  have  the 
truth  demonstrated." 

For  the  "trumpet"  voice,  we  may  select  the  following  four  records : 
Figure  12  (pp.  516  and  517). 

In  the  first  record  "Dr.  Truman"  said:  "We  are  all  very  interested 
in  this  experimentation ;  as  much  as  yourselves.  .  .  ."  During  the 
third :  "Don't  be  discouraged ;  it  requires  much  patience ;  much  perse- 
verance. Without  faith  to  sow  you  could  not  reap."  And  during  the 
fourth:  "We  thank  you  for  your  painstaking  interest  and  work."  (This 
was  the  last  record  of  the  seance  voices).  His  speaking  was  deliberate, 
in  phrases,  dignified. 

For  the  "independent"  voice,  perhaps  the  following  will  serve: 
Figure  13  (pp.  518  and  519). 


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520  APPENDIX  D 

The  pulse  curve  in  a,  above,  was  obtained  accidentally ;  at  that 
point  there  were  two  thicknesses  of  paper  on  the  drum  caused  by  the 
sheet  lapping  over  for  pasting,  which  brought  the  surface  in  contact 
with  the  dislodged  writing-finger. 

During  the  second  record,  "Professor  James"  said :  "I  wish  I  might 
be  able  to  speak  more  distinctly  so  as  to  make  a  perfect  record." 

Now,  it  is  well  known  that  many  subjects  in  the  laboratory  show 
involuntary  movement  of  the  tongue  I7  and  of  the  larynx  18  when  they 
read  silently,  think  19  words,  or  even  hear  words  or  songs ;  and  although 
Professor  Hyslop  20  was  able  to  observe  "action  of  Mrs.  Blake's  vocal 
muscles  very  distinctly  when  [trumpet]  communications  were  going  on 
with  Dr.  Guthrie"  and  he  notices  the  coincidences  between  this  vocal 
action  and  the  muffled  sounds  in  the  trumpet,  and  although  the  impres- 
sion made  upon  him  was  that  "the  evidence  was  unmistakable  that  Mrs. 
Blake's  vocal  muscles  were  used  in  producing  the  sounds,"  21  he  never- 
theless appears  inclined  to  regard  this  action  as  possibly  merely  sympa- 
thetic: "That  her  vocal  organs  act  at  least  sympathetically  with  the 
voices  in  the  trumpet  there  is  no  doubt,  but  that  they  cause  the  phenom- 
ena is  not  proved  by  the  imitative  experiments  [with  a  trumpet]  re- 
corded." 22  The  same  implication  is  to  be  found  in  the  reports  of  the 
investigation  of  Miss  Burton  by  two  physicians,  Drs.  Smyth  and  Ham- 
ilton: "We  were  permitted  to  examine  [by  feeling  with  the  hand]  the 
larynx  and  lips  of  the  psychic  while  the  [independent]  singing  and 
whistling  was  in  progress.  .  .  .  Without  being  able  to  detect  sound 
issuing  from  her  throat  or  mouth,  the  psychic's  larynx  vibrated  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  deep  contralto  tones  produced  in  the  trumpet  several  feet 
away."  23  Professor  Hyslop  verified  the  fact  of  vibratory  and  muscular 
movement  in  the  throat  synchronously  with  independent  singing  and 
whistling,  in  his  investigation  of  Miss  Burton.  This  action  he  says,  in 
the  introduction,  "is  at  least  sympathetic  and  would  in  most  cases  be 
accepted  as  conclusive  evidence  of  an  adequate  explanation  of  the  phe- 

17  Wyczoikowska  :  Theoretical  and  experimental  studies  in  the  mechanism  of 
speech.    Psychological  Rev.,  1913,  20:448-458. 

18  Curtis:  Automatic  movements  of  the  larynx.  Am.  Jr.  Psych.,  1899-1900, 
1 1 :  237-239. 

19  Strieker:    Die   Sprachvorstellungen,  p.   16. 

20  Op.  cit.,  p.  721. 

21  Op.  cit.,  p.  721. 

22  Op.  cit.,  p.  602. 

23  Experiments  with  trance  phenomena.     Jr.  Am.  S.P.R.,  1909,  3:707. 


INVESTIGATION    WITH    A   "TRUMPET"   MEDIUM  521 

nomenon.  But  several  circumstances  make  this  an  issue  still  to  be  de- 
termined." 2* 

This  interpretation  of  our  results  also  occurred  to  the  President  and 
others  of  our  Society,  and  the  records  that  were  taken  from  normal  uni- 
versity students  by  the  writer  to  illustrate,  if  not  to  prove,  the  improb- 
ability of  the  "sympathetic  activity"  theory,  may  be  of  interest  here. 

The  same  apparatus  was  set  up  in  Room  397  in  the  Psychological 
Laboratory  at  Stanford  University,  and  records  were  taken  from  two 
yc-dng  women  who  were  attending  one  of  the  writer's  classes. 

The  records  from  Miss  Flatau  will  illustrate  the  facts.  As  shown 
in  the  curves  above,  the  carotid  pulse  curve  is  the  upper,  and  the  respira- 
tion curve  is  the  lower  member  of  each  pair.  The  first  pair  records  the 
changes  caused  by  speaking  aloud:  "I  wish  I  might  be  able  to  speak 
more  distinctly" ;  the  second  pair  records  the  changes  caused  by  whis- 
pering the  sentence  so  that  it  could  be  heard  by  a  companion ;  the  third, 
by  whispering  with  closed  lips  (she  could  feel  the  vocal  organs  move)  ; 
the  fourth,  by  inner  recitation  of  the  sentence  (with  attention  upon  the 
pronunciation  rather  than  upon  the  meaning  of  the  words).  Figure  14 
(P-  522). 

Records  1  and  2  show  the  characteristic  in  expiration  common  to 
the  curves  of  the  seance  voices,  as  well  as  of  the  psychic's  voice,  which 
results  from  the  use  of  the  air  in  the  lungs  by  the  vocal  organs  for 
speech.  Records  3  and  4,  which  were  taken  with  1  and  2  at  the  same 
sitting,  with  the  instruments  in  the  same  adjustment,  show  that  "sympa- 
thetic action"  of  the  vocal  organs,  even  when  intentionally  induced  as  in 
Record  3,  is  but  slightly  transmitted  by  our  instruments  and  then  only 
in  the  carotid  pulse  curve.26 

If  the  reader  will  imagine  that  he  hears  the  sentence  pronounced  in 
a  very  dignified  manner,  and  permits  his  vocal  organs  to  act  "sympa- 
thetically" with  the  imagined  voice,  he  will  find  that  this  sympathetic 
activity  is  independent  of  his  respiration  and  occurs  synchronously  with 
inspiration  as  well  as  with  expiration. 

The  fact  then  appears  to  be  that  the  peculiar  characteristic  in  the  res- 
piration curves  is  caused  by  the  breath  being  conserved  in  expiration,  by 
the   constricting  movements  of  the  vocal  organs,  and  that   articulated 


24  A  case  of  hysteria.    Proceedings  Am.  S.  P.  R.,  1911.5:43. 

25  The  experimenter  is  aware  of  great  variation  between  individuals  with 
respect  to  the  amount  of  involuntary  activity  of  the  vocal  organs  during  silent 
reading  or  recitation ;  yet  he  suspects  that  further  experiments  will  show  that  the 
present  apparatus  is  not  well  adapted  to  test  its  presence. 


Pulse  Curve 
Respiration  Curve 
Quiet 


Speaking 


Record.  1.  Speaking  aloud 


Quiet 


Whispering 


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Record 2.  Speaking  in  a  whisper 


1 


'  ' 


Quiet      i  Induced. vocal  activity 

-1 ■ •         ■ « 1 i  ■» 

3.  Whisperwith  closed  lips 

i 


,   Quiet    .  '   Sympathetic  vocal  activ ity 


4.  Inner  recitation 

Fig.  14. —  Records  from  Miss  Flatau. 


INVESTIGATION   WITH   A  "TRUMPET"   MEDIUM  523 

sounds,  either  vocalized  or  whispered,  must  take  place.  The  hypothesis 
that  the  restrained  respiration  may  be  due  to  the  control  of  the  dia- 
phragm and  intercostal  muscles,  as  in  the  case  of  strained  attention,  and 
that  therefore  movements  of  the  vocal  organs  during  restrained  expira- 
tion not  being  accompanied  by  constriction  of  the  glottis,  need  not  issue 
in  articulated  sounds,  may  be  dismissed  as  entirely  improbable,  since  the 
assumed  control  affects  equally  inspiration  and  expiration,  while  only  ex- 
piration was  restrained.  And  if  a  critic  were  to  still  insist  that  the 
peculiar  circumstances  of  the  seance  may  after  all  necessitate  serious 
consideration  of  this  last  hypothesis,  it  can  be  pointed  out  that  partial 
suppression  of  respiration  by  the  assumed  control  could  not  account  for 
the  irregular  form  of  the  expiration  curve,  which  conforms  precisely 
with  what  one  would  expect  on  the  assumption  that  the  breath  was  being 
used  for  pronouncing  syllables  which  make  unequal  and  irregular  de- 
mands upon  it ;  in  other  words,  the  expiration  was  not  only  partially 
suppressed  but  it  was  intermittently  stopped  by  the  production  of  certain 
consonantal  sounds — the  mutes.26  If  the  reader  will  turn  back  to  the 
respiration  curves  and  note  the  minute  irregularities  in  all  of  the  expira- 
tion curves  taken  when  there  was  speaking,  he  will  realize  the  force  of 
this  point. 

So  far  as  our  evidence  goes  it  is  wholly  in  the  direction  of  the  hy- 
pothesis that  the  seance  voices  are  caused  by  the  vocal  organs  of  the 
psychic.  She  herself  may  be  anaesthetic  for  her  vocal  activity  and  may 
regard  the  voices  as  independent ;  at  any  rate,  as  will  be  shown  later, 
the  hypothesis  of  conscious  fraud  seems  highly  improbable. 

Further  work  by  the  use  of  the  kymograph  and  the  many  useful 
instruments  for  recording  upon  it  is  projected  for  next  year's  investi- 
gation. The  movement  of  the  tongue  and  larynx  can  be  directly  re- 
corded, and  true  "word  curves"  of  the  seance  voices  can  be  compared 
with  those  of  the  psychic.  Pulse  and  respiration  can  be  determined  for 
states  accompanying  the  various  voices,  and  the  question  as  to  whether 
there  is  trance  or  regional  anaesthesia  can  be  settled. 

Other  scientific  instruments  may  be  used  to  bring  the  question  of 
the  relation  between  the  seance  voices  and  the  psychic's  vocal  organs  to 
a  definite  solution :    the  dictaphone  or  telegraphone,  with  the  transmitter 


-6  The  fact  of  unequal  demand  of  syllables  upon  the  breath  may  be  verified 
by  pronouncing  for  contrast,  hat,  pat ;  what,  bought ;  kick,  whizz,  etc.  It  also 
happens  to  be  used  in  Webster's  International  Dictionary  in  the  definition  of  "mute" 
used  as  a  noun  in  phonetics :  "An  element  of  speech  formed  by  a  position  of 
the  mouth  organs  which  stops  the  passage  of  breath;"  as,  p,  b,  t,  d,  k,  g. 


524  APPENDIX  D 

at  the  lips  of  the  psychic  for  recording  any  sounds  issuing  from  them, 
and  a  duplicate  in  the  room  or  in  the  trumpet  for  recording  the  "inde- 
pendent" voice,  would  enable  the  experimenter,  by  comparison  of  rec- 
ords, to  determine  whether  "independent"  voices  occur  at  all  without  the 
accompaniment  of  sound  from  the  psychic's  vocal  organs,  and  would 
throw  light  on  the  relative  amount  of  the  sound  contributed  by  the 
psychic's  vocal  organs,  helping  to  determine  whether  all  the  sound  is 
produced  by  them.  These  instruments  could  record  synchronously  with 
the  laryngeal  and  respiration  recorders  so  as  to  insure  the  proper  adjust- 
ment of  the  transmitter  at  the  mouth  during  "independent"  speaking. 
Emulsion  could  be  placed  in  the  trumpet  for  analysis  of  the  air  after 
voices  speak  through  it,  to  determine  whether  it  is  free  from  traces  of 
the  psychic's  breath  which  may  have  been  prepared  for  easy  detection, 
and  the  results  compared  with  the  analysis  of  emulsion  exposed  to  the 
general  air  in  the  room  in  another  trumpet  which  is  under  precise 
control.27 

2.  Relation  of  the  "Physical  Phenomena"  to  the  Psychic's  Body. 

Upon  the  hypothesis  that  the  seance  voices  are  produced  by  the 
psychic's  organs  of  speech,  it  would  be  difficult  to  explain  the  function 
of  an  aluminum  trumpet,  unless  it  is  to  augment  the  sound  of  the  voice, 
or  to  direct  it  and  give  it  a  location,  by  speaking  through  it.  But  this 
would  involve  the  psychic's  free  handling  of  the  trumpet,  which,  it  is 
claimed,  is  not  done. 

Hamlin  Garland,  in  a  sitting  with  Mrs.  S.,  witnessed  the  use  of  the 
trumpet,  for  rapping,  touching,  and  speaking,  when  it  was  placed  on  a 
table  "entirely  out  of  reach  of  the  psychic."  28  who,  moreover,  was  tied 


27  Less  certain  tests  could  be  employed;  such  as,  (l)  a  solid  wire  or  willow 
frame  to  clamp  over  the  psychic,  enclosing  her  body  from  the  waist  up,  or  to  screw 
down  on  the  floor  over  the  psychic  and  her  chair,  leaving  the  trumpet  outside;  (2) 
a  cage  for  the  trumpet;  (3)  water  of  an  unknown  color  to  be  held  in  the  mouth 
during  "independent"  speaking;  (4)  the  mouth  sealed  with  surgeons'  tape;  (5) 
small  paper  bags  tied  over  the  psychic's  hands ;  etc.  But  they  fail  to  reveal  the 
method  of  the  production  of  the  voices,  and,  besides,  there  are  well-known  ways  to 
circumvent  them  by  irresponsible  but  ingenious  secondary  personalities,  which  de- 
prive them  of  evidential  value:  the  reaching-rod  taken  from  the  waist  and  handled 
inside  the  cage  would  nullify  the  first  test ;  a  second  concealed  trumpet,  or  even 
the  "resonance"  of  the  "controlled"  trumpet,  the  second ;  a  collapsible  cup  to  hold 
the  water  while  speaking,  the  third;  displacement  of  tape,  the  fourth;  removal,  the 
fifth;   etc. 

28  Garland :  Sounds,  voices,  and  physical  disturbances  in  the  presence  of  a 
psychic.    Psychical  Rev.,  1  :228. 


INVESTIGATION    WITH   A   "TRUMPET"    MEDIUM  525 

hand  and  foot  to  her  chair  with  tape  the  ends  of  which  were  nailed  to 
the  floor;  again,  in  a  later  sitting,29  while  the  psychic  was  even  more 
securely  tied  down  hand  and  foot,  the  tape  nailed  to  her  chair  and  to 
the  floor,  and  while  he  held  a  thread  tied  to  one  of  the  psychic's  wrists, 
and  Mr.  Flower  held  a  thread  tied  to  the  other  wrist,  so  as  to  be  able  to 
detect  the  least  movement  of  the  hands,  the  trumpet,  which  had  been 
placed  on  the  floor  25  inches  from  her  right  hand,  was  used  for  speak- 
ing; and  again,  while  Mr.  Garland  had  one  hand  on  the  psychic's  left 
arm,  and  Mr.  Flower  one  hand  on  her  right  arm,  and  their  other  hands 
were  upon  her  head,  the  trumpet,  which  had  been  placed  on  a  table  28 
inches  from  the  psychic's  left  hand,  was  levitated  and  deftly  manipulated.30 
Mr.  Garland  concluded:  "So  far  as  the  senses  of  touch  and  hearing  go, 
Mrs.  Smith's  [the  psychic's]  arms  and  feet  had  nothing  whatever  to  do 
(in  the  ordinary  way)  with  the  movement  of  the  cone  [trumpet]."  : 

While  Dr.  Hyslop  was  holding  both  of  Miss  Burton's  hands  in  his 
left  and  grasped  the  large  end  of  the  trumpet  with  his  right  hand,  the 
trumpet  was  moved  and  jerked  without  any  apparent  means.  He  writes : 
"I  was  exceedingly  careful  to  observe  the  behavior  of  the  hands.  Both 
times,  when  the  trumpet  was  jerking,  Miss  Burton's  hands  were  abso- 
lutely passive  during  the  whole  performance  and  no  motion  of  them 
whatever  was  detectable,  except  when  the  trumpet  was  perfectly  still. 
...  It  was  physically  impossible  for  her  feet  to  get  at  it,  as  I  took  care 
to  observe  at  the  end  of  the  evening's  work.  ...  I  offer  no  explanation 
of  the  facts."  32 

Our  sitters  have  also  taken  precautions  to  have  Mrs.  Key  tied  to 
her  chair,  and  the  trumpet  out  of  her  reach,  in  seances  during  which 
"trumpet  voices"  spoke  freely,  and  the  general  impression  which  they 
entertain  is  that  she  does  not  touch  the  trumpet,  or  any  of  the  other  ob- 
jects that  are  moved  in  the  production  of  seance  phenomena. 

Now,  it  will  be  remembered  that  one  cause  for  paucity  of  kymo- 
graph data  for  studying  the  physical  condition  of  the  psychic  during 
the  seance  was  the  blank  records  resulting  from  one  or  both  of  the  writ- 
ing-fingers being  pulled  away  from  contact  with  the  smoked  paper  on 
the  drum.  They  occurred  during  the  seances  of  March  21,  and  March 
28,  and  it  is  just  possible  that  they  throw  some  light  upon  the  manner 
in  which  the  physical  phenomena  are  produced. 


29  Report  of  dark  seances,  with  a  non-professional  psychic,  for  voices  and  the 
movement  of  objects  without  contact.    Psychical  Rev.,  2:170  ft. 

30  Ibid.,  170-3. 
slIbid.,  p.  174- 

32  Proceedings  Am.  S.  P.  R.,  1911,  5  :  562  ff. 


526  APPENDIX  D 

On  March  21,  after  Record  No.  5,  and  before  Record  6,  physical 
phenomena  occurred :  the  table  vibrated,  a  sitter  remote  from  the  psychic 
was  touched  by  the  trumpet,  papers  on  the  table  were  moved,  and  the 
telegraph  instrument  standing  on  the  table  was  operated.  Now,  by  the 
4th  record  the  pulse  recorder,  and  by  the  5th  the  respiration  recorder, 
had  left  the  drum ;  by  the  7th  record  the  latter  returned.  The  two 
recorders  must  have  been  pulled  independently  of  the  other  recorders, 
since,  while  they  were  out  of  commission,  the  time-marker  and  the  other 
signal-recorder,  which  were  clamped  to  the  same  standard,  were  still  in 
function.  This  could  be  done  only  by  changing  the  strain  upon  them 
by  shifting  the  rubber  tubing  connecting  them  with  the  psychic.  The 
recorders  had  been  relieved  from  much  of  the  weight  of  this  tubing  by 
supporting  the  spans  ( about  six  feet  long)  between  the  table  and  the 
psychic  upon  the  seat  of  a  chair  drawn  up  to  the  end  of  the  table. 
Change  of  strain  would  necessitate  rather  free  movement  of  this  tubing 
in  order  to  raise  it  from  the  support  of  the  chair  and  could  scarcely  be 
effected  without  the  psychic  leaving  her  chair,  and,  consequently,  might 
have  taken  place  in  the  following  manner:  After  Record  3,  during  the 
singing  of  the  sitters,  the  psychic  released  herself  and  rose  to  her  feet, 
by  Record  5  she  had  stepped  slightly  forward  toward  the  trumpet  and 
the  front  of  the  table  where  the  telegraph  instrument  was  placed,  by 
Record  6  the  phenomena  had  been  produced  and  she  was  standing  by 
her  chair,  by  Record  7  she  had  returned  to  her  seat,  relieving  the  res- 
piration recorder  of  sufficient  strain  to  begin  recording  again.  This  in- 
terpretation may  be  defective  in  some  of  its  details,  but  that  it  is  essen- 
tially correct  seems  to  be  borne  out  by  other  facts  to  be  noticed  later. 

One  corroborating  circumstance  is  that  on  the  side  of  the  drum 
which  was  next  to  the  telegraph  instrument  when  that  instrument  was 
operated,  between  Records  5  and  6,  there  is  a  smudge  (  Fig.  15)  on  the 
kymograph  paper  caused  by  the  removal  of  a  square  inch  or  more  of 
lamp-black,  such  as  might  be  made  by  a  sleeve  or  other  fibrous  surface 
moving  in  a  downward  direction.  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  state  that 
this  sheet  of  records  was  carefully  guarded  until  it  was  "fixed"  in  a  bath 
of  shellac  immediately  after  the  seance,  and  that  the  smudge  could  not 
have  been  an  accident  in  manipulation ;  while  it  was  on  the  kymograph 
it  was  beyond  the  field  of  the  experimenter's  hands  and  entirely  safe 
from  his  clothing. 

On  March  28th,  the  tubing  was  held  in  a  clamp  fastened  to  the  edge 
of  the  table  (as  is  shown  in  Fig.  8),  but  in  spite  of  this  greater  security 
the  pulse-recorder  was  thrown  out,  after  Record  2,  by  the  tubing  being 


Fig.  15.— Smudge  on  Kymograph  Record.     {Vide,  p.  526.) 
(Size  .42  diameters.) 


INVESTIGATION   WITH    A      TRUMPET      MEDIUM 


527 


pulled  rather  energetically.  In  view  of  "Katie's"  statement,  before  the 
seance  closed,  that  it  was  thought  that  neither  of  the  writing-fingers  had 
been  recording  during  the  speaking  of  the  "independent"  voices,  the  in- 
ference suggests  itself  that  she  perhaps  knew  of  circumstances  calcu- 
lated to  put  both  recorders  out  of  commission  again.  In  the  next  seance, 
April  4th,  precautions  were  taken  to  clamp  the  tubing  still  more  securely, 
and  the  experimenter  got  permission  after  each  record  to  use  a  weak 
ruby  flash-light  to  inspect  the  apparatus,  thus  insuring  complete  records. 
Concerning  the  cooperation  of  the  "seance  personalities"  more  will  be 
said  later. 

Our  next  endeavor  was  the  classical  experiment  of  measuring 
"psychic  force."  It  will  be  remembered  that  Sir  William  Crookes,33 
in  1 87 1,  measured,  in  daylight,  by  means  of  self-registering  spring  bal- 
ances, the  "psychic  force"  exerted  by  the  American  medium  D.  D. 
Home,  when  the  latter  was  in  contact  with,  and  when  he  was  at  a  dis- 
tance of  three  feet  from,  the  mahogany  board  upon  which  the  force  was 
exerted ;  that  he  represented  pictorially  the  variation  in  the  force  ex- 
erted, by  means  of  a  traveling  smoked  glass  and  a  writing-finger  at- 
tached to  the  indicator  of  the  balances.  And  in  Turin,  in  the  early  part 
of  1907,  the  assistants  of  Mosso  (Foa,  Herlitzka,  Aggazzotti)34  repeated 
the  experiment,  in  an  improved  form,  with  Eusapia  Palladino.  After 
"John,"  Eusapia's  "control,"  had  been  given  an  opportunity  to  press  a 
telegraph  key  in  a  closed  box,  and  he  did  so  only  after  forcibly  remov- 
ing the  cover,  Eusapia  explaining  that  had  the  cover  not  been  of  card- 
board but  of  woven  texture  he  could  have  operated  in  the  enclosed 
space,  the  experimenters  provided  a  vessel  of  water,  covered  by  a  rub- 
ber capsule,  which  was  placed  in  a  box  over  the  top  of  which  a  cloth 
cover  was  tacked.  The  water  was  in  connection  with  a  manometer 
which  would  transmit  force  exerted  on  the  capsule  to  a  writing-finger 
in  contact  with  a  kymograph  drum,  by  which  the  amount  of  force,  its 
variability,  and  the  length  of  time  it  was  exerted,  would  be  pictorially 
represented.  The  capsule  was  coated  with  lamp-black  to  show  the  man- 
ner of  contact.  "John"  tore  the  cloth  cover  in  exerting  the  "force"  on 
the  capsule. 

During  four  seances   (April  II,   18,  25,  May  2)   our  "seance  per- 

33  Crookes :     Researches   in  the   Phenomena   of   Spiritualism.     London,   1874, 

14-17.  33-42. 

S4Podmore:     Newer  Spiritualism,    101  ff. ;  Lombroso :     After  Death— What? 

76  ff. ;    Carrington  :    Eusapia  Palladino  and  Her  Phenomena,  100  ff. ;    and  Annates 
des  Sciences  Psychiques,  1907. 


528  APPENDIX  D 

sonalities"  were  given  an  opportunity  to  exert  "force"  on  a  platform 
spring-balance  which  was  provided  with  an  indicator  that  marks  the 
maximum  position  of  the  scale-pointer  in  its  swing  around  the  dial. 
The  platform  is  square,  and  was  provided  with  white  cardboard  covers 
(6  in.  by  6  in.)  which  fit  loosely  yet  closely  over  it,  coated  with  lamp- 
black to  record  the  manner  of  contact.  The  covers  were  not  seen  by 
any  of  the  sitters  or  the  psychic,  were  brought  prepared  to  the  seance 
and  were  put  on  and  taken  off  in  the  darkness,  usually  during  the  sing- 
ing of  the  sitters. 

In  these  four  seances  the  program  was : 

( i  )  To  get  psychic  force  exerted  upon  the  scales  by  several  "seance 
personalities,"  especially  "Colonel  Roland,"  one  of  the  regular  controls, 
"Sir  William  Crookes,"  35  who  would  be  especially  interested  in  his  own 
experiment,  and  "Professor  Wm.  James,"  who  has  shown  great  interest 
in  all  our  investigation  by  scientific  instruments. 

(2)  To  get  "International"  or  "Morse"  "code"  on  the  telegraph  in- 
strument (see  Fig.  16),  which  records  automatically  on  a  ribbon  of  white 
paper  run  through  the  apparatus  by  clock-work,  and  which  had  often 
been  operated,  even  by  "Phillips,"  the  wireless  hero  who  went  down  on 
the  Titanic,  but  had  failed  to  record  "code." 

(3)  To  have  one  of  the  controls,  "Colonel  Roland"  or  "Dr.  Tru- 
man," who  customarily  use  the  trumpet,  speak. 

The  third  phenomenon  is  not  special,  since  it  occurs  at  almost  every 
seance ;  and  is  mentioned  here  to  indicate  that  care  was  taken  to  get  it 
after  "psychic  force"  should  be  exerted  upon  the  scales.  The  second  was 
unique  only  in  insistence  upon  "code,"  and  was  subordinated  to  the  first. 

The  first  seance  was  a  blank. 

In  the  second  seance,  the  trumpet  was  thrown  over  but  was  not  used 
for  speaking.  "Katie,"  the  control  who  speaks  in  "automatic"  voice, 
said  in  reply  to  the  experimenter's  inquiry  that  "Sir  Wm.  Crookes,"  36 
and  "Professor  Wm.  James"  are  here.  Experimenter:  "We  may  hope 
to  have  them,  each  of  them,  exert  force  on  the  scales,  may  we?" 
"Katie" :  "Yes,  sir."  The  scales  are  manipulated,  and  the  experimenter 
asks  if  he  may  use  his  ruby  light  to  read  the  dial.  "Katie":  "No  force 
was  exerted  on  it."     Experimenter:    "Who  touched  the  scales?"     "Ka- 


35  The  experimenter  was  under  the  impression  that  this  eminent  scientist  was 
dead.  Upon  visiting  the  library  (May  25,  1914),  he  finds  that  Sir  Wm.  Crookes 
is  still  active  and  publishing  scientific  papers,  and  is  now  the  honored  president 
of  the  Royal  Society  of  London,  of  which  he  was  elected  a  Fellow  in  1863. 

36  See  footnote  35- 


bo    a; 


P5 


H 
I 


INVESTIGATION    WITH    A   "TRUMPET"   MEDIUM  529 

tie" :  "Dr.  Truman  was  the  one  who  touched  the  scales.  ...  If  they 
should  touch  the  apparatus,  could  you  account  for  the  Secretary's 
hands?"  Experimenter:  "Yes."  The  scales  are  rather  violently  manip- 
ulated, the  cover  falling  off  upon  the  table.  Experimenter  is  given 
permission  to  use  his  light  to  read  the  time  and  the  dial:  4:40,  5J4  lb. 
"Katie":  "Dr.  Hodgson  exerted  the  force;  he  said  he  was  too  heavy;  he 
exerted  too  much  strength ;  he  knocked  something  off  the  top  of  the  ap- 
paratus." 

There  was  no  operation  of  the  telegraph  instrument,  and  no  trumpet 
voice,  although  the  trumpet  was  thrown  down. 

The  cover  which  had  been  on  the  scales  bore  only  some  finger- 
prints of  the  experimenter's  left  second  finger,  on  one  corner,  made  in 
locating  it  after  it  was  thrown  off.  The  force  was  applied  after  the 
cover  had  been  removed.  Apprehension  of  the  "seance  personalities" 
and  disquiet  of  the  psychic  will  be  discussed  later. 

In  the  third  and  fourth  seances  the  psychic's  hands  were  not  inclosed 
in  paper  bags,  but  she  was  tied  to  her  chair  in  the  customary  perfunctory 
manner. 

During  the  third  seance  there  was  considerable  jarring  of  the  floor, 
and  the  scales  kept  up  an  almost  incessant  rattle.  The  seance  was  a 
blank.  The  trumpet  was  thrown  down,  picked  up,  rapped  in  the  air,  set 
deftly  on  the  table.  "Katie"  said  it  was  "Colonel  Roland"  who  manipu- 
lated the  trumpet,  that  he  was  sorry  that  he  toppled  it  over,  and  that 
President  Booker  would  understand  why  the  trumpet  fell.  More  of  ap- 
prehension later.  "Katie"  said  the  "forces"  were  present  and  were  try- 
ing to  exert  force  on  the  apparatus,  but  that  they  would  have  to  give  it 
up.     The  trumpet  was  not  handled  with  bare  hands. 

In  the  fourth  seance  three  "personalities"  exerted  "force"  upon  the 
scales,  and  "Colonel  Roland"  spoke  through  the  trumpet.  There  was  no 
operation  of  the  telegraph  instrument.  According  to  custom  the  experi- 
menter got  permission  after  each  manipulation  of  the  scales  to  read  the 
time  and  the  dial : 

(1)  4:32,  5J4  lb.  by  "Colonel  Roland,"  with  his  right  hand. 

(2)  4:45,  i?4  lb.  by  "Professor  James,"  with  his  right  hand. 

(3)  4:52,  3J4  lb.  by  "Dr.  Hodgson,"  with  his  left  hand. 
"Katie"  told  us  who  exerted  the  force  and  what  hand  was  used. 

She  said  "James"  was  very  much  pleased  with  his  performance,  and  that 
he  exerted  all  the  pressure  he  could  at  this  time.  "Colonel  Roland"  said 
that  "Dr.  Hodgson"  did  not  wait  long  enough  to  gather  sufficient  force 
to  make  his  record  a  personal  expression.     For  the  third  record  there 


530 


APPENDIX  D 


was  no  cover  on  the  scale-top,  but  it  is  painted  black  and  was  prepared 
by  a  very  thin  film  of  talcum  powder  which  showed  that  the  force  was 
exerted  through  a  fabric  of  some  kind,  not  a  bare  hand  or  fingers. 

This  brings  us  to  the  important  consideration  in  this  topic.  Could 
the  psychic's  body  have  been  used  directly,  and  in  no  occult  way,  in  the 
production  of  these  physical  phenomena?  All  the  evidence  we  have 
points  that  way.  The  contact  with  the  cover  of  the  scales  was  an  ordi- 
nary kind  of  contact,  and  was  applied  in  just  such  a  manner  as  a  person 
would  use  who  wished  to  avoid  leaving  his  mark  of  identification.  Force 
was  applied  to  the  scales  four  times.  The  record  of  the  first  contact  was 
lost  because  "Dr.  Hodgson"  knocked  off  the  cover  before  he  exerted  the 
force.  The  record  of  the  fourth  could  not  be  preserved  and  reproduced, 
but  the  talcum  powder  was  competent  to  show  that  force  was  applied 
through  fabric.     The  second  and  third  records  are  shown  in  Figure  17. 

The  second  cover  (a)  shows  that  "Colonel  Roland"  carefully  wiped 
off  the  lamp-black  from  the  corner  of  the  cover  next  to  the  psychic,  be- 
fore he  exerted  his  force ;  and  test  with  graphite  showed  that  he  did  not 
use  a  bare  hand. 

The  third  cover  (b),  which  was  exchanged  for  the  second  during  the 
seance,  shows  that  "Prof.  Wm.  James"  took  the  precaution  of  exerting 
his  force  through  woven  fabric  wrapped  around  or  held  in  a  left  hand. 
(See  Figure  18.)  The  force  was  applied  upon  the  side  of  the  platform 
which  on  the  immediately  preceding  cover  was  carefully  wiped  off;  and 
the  query  naturally  arises  as  to  whether  he  suspected  that  he  was  using 
the  cleaned  cover.  The  fabric  he  used  is  of  fine  weave,  undoubtedly  of 
ribbed  silk  or  lisle-silk,  such  as  is  used  in  the  manufacture  of  fine  ladies' 
gloves  or  stockings;  accurate  count  shows  an  average  of  13  ribs  to  the 
quarter  inch,  and  of  14  threads  transverse  to  these  to  the  quarter  inch. 

Whether  "Colonel  Roland"  used  the  same  piece  of  fabric  to  clean  off 
his  scale-cover,  cannot  with  certainty  be  determined,  although  traces  show 
13  ribs  to  the  quarter  inch,  for  he  may  have  used  one  just  like  it  (e.  g., 
the  other  glove)  ;  but  it  is  certain  that  he  used  sooty  fabric  in  handling 
the  trumpet  through  which  he  spoke  after  his  experiment  with  the  scales, 
for  the  trumpet  had  been  carefully  polished  and  it  now  carries  irregular 
patches  of  lamp-black  at  grasping-distance  from  the  small  end,  and  it 
does  not  show  contact  of  the  bare  hand  or  fingers,  except  those  accounted 
for,  which  it  is  competent  to  do.  The  fabric  is  woven  and  is  undoubt- 
edly that  used  by  himself  in  handling  the  scales  the  moment  before,  for 
"Professor  James"  exerted  his  force  on  the  scales  after  the  lamp-black 


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INVESTIGATION    WITH   A   "TRUMPET"   MEDIUM  531 

was  left  on  the  trumpet — the  only  seance  voice  to  speak  later  being 
"Katie." 

The  experimenter  may  now  take  the  last  step,  by  going  back  to  the 
first  seance  (March  14th),  of  which  nothing  has  yet  been  said,  and  thus 
relate  the  beginning  and  end  of  his  halting  investigation.  He  has  just 
noted  that  the  surface  that  touched  the  trumpet  is  the  same  surface  that 
touched  the  scales.  Could  this  surface  have  been  manipulated  directly  by 
the  psychic's  body?  Before  that  first  seance,  the  program  for  which  in- 
volved a  message  from  beyond  the  veil  given  in  a  language  familiar  to 
a  departed  personality  but  unknown  to  the  psychic  and  sitters  (except 
the  experimenter)  by  the  use  of  a  self-recording  telegraph  instrument, 
the  experimenter,  noting  the  dull  imprint  made  by  the  recording  mechan- 
ism, procured  from  a  neighboring  shop  some  printer's  ink,  and  a  thin 
layer  of  this  ink  was  left  on  the  key  for  the  purpose  of  recording  the 
kind  of  contact.  After  the  seance,  during  which  the  psychic  was  tied  to 
her  chair  as  usual,  and  trumpet  voices  had  spoken,  printer's  ink  was 
found  ( 1 )  on  the  trumpet  in  three  spots  in  a  position  convenient  for 
grasping  it  between  the  thumb  and  the  first  two  fingers  of  the  right  hand, 
and  (2)  on  the  thumb  and  the  first  two  fingers  of  the  psychic's  right  hand. 
The  telegraph  instrument  had  been  taken  in  charge  immediately  after  the 
seance,  by  the  experimenter,  and  the  remaining  ink  removed  with  ben- 
zine, so  that  there  was  no  opportunity  for  the  psychic  to  come  in  contact 
with  the  ink  after  the  light  was  turned  on.  The  most  natural  explanation 
is  that  the  psychic's  hand  was  used  in  touching  the  telegraph  instrument 
and  the  trumpet. 

A  bit  of  corroboratory  evidence  for  direct  manipulation  is  afforded 
by  one  of  the  Society's  seances  (January  31,  1914),  at  which  Mrs.  J.  sat 
as  psychic.  Mrs.  J.,  it  must  be  noted,  sat  a  couple  of  times  for  the  Sey- 
bert  Commission,  in  1885.  and  was  one  of  the  few  mediums  to  whom 
that  commission  referred  in  complimentary  terms.37  In  our  seance,  the 
table,  papers,  telegraph  instrument,  were  rather  violently  handled.  Dur- 
ing one  interval  just  after  the  telegraph  instrument  had  been  furiously 
"operated,"  the  medium  apparently  clapping  her  hands  meanwhile  to 
show  the  independence  of  the  phenomenon,  President  Booker  caught  her 
hands  which  had  been  placed  on  his  knees,  and  called  loudly  for  a  repeti- 
tion of  the  telegraph  operating,  announcing  to  the  other  sitters  the  con- 
trol of  the  psychic.  No  tapping  occurred.  Obviously,  the  medium  a  few 
minutes  earlier  may  have  been  patting  some  bare  surface  of  her  body, 


37  Preliminary  Report.     University  of  Pennsylvania,  Philadelphia,   1887. 


532  APPENDIX  D 

perhaps  her  face,  with  one  hand  while  producing  "physical  phenomena" 
with  the  other. 

The  final  seance  (May  9th)  was  a  blank.  Although  the  trumpet 
was  thrown  down  a  couple  of  times,  and  the  table  was  hauled  out  half  a 
foot  and  shoved  part  of  the  way  back,  and  metallic  and  non-metallic  raps 
were  produced,  we  did  not  get  any  of  the  proposed  phenomena : 

1.  Taps  as  rapidly  as  possible  on  the  telegraph  instrument  in  the  open  air. 

2.  Taps  on  same,  in  a  locked  paper  box. 

3.  Thumb-prints   on   either 

a.  The  white  paper  lying  by  the  telegraph  instrument,  in  the  open  air,  or 

b.  The  smoked  paper  lying  on  the  scales  in  a  closed  closet. 

"Katie"  said  that  "Colonel  Roland"  and  "Dr.  Truman"  with  others 
were  present,  and  that  shoving  the  table  was  incidental  to  getting  force 
to  do  what  was  wanted.    Misuse  of  force  will  be  spoken  of  later. 

Thus  far,  no  "physical  phenomena"  have  been  produced  which  can- 
not be  most  easily  explained  by  the  direct  and  non-mysterious  use  of  the 
psychic's  body.  The  rope-tying  feats  of  the  Davenport  Brothers,38  Eva 
Fay,'"  Kellar,40  and  others,41  do  not  permit  one  to  attach  any  importance 
whatever  to  the  tying  of  the  psychic  to  her  chair.42  And  present  knowl- 
edge of  anaesthesia  for  automatic  phenomena,4'  and  amnesia  for  somnam- 


38  Podmore :  Modern  Spiritualism,  vol.  II,  pp.  55  ct  scq.  Also,  Evans:  The 
Spirit  World  Unmasked. 

39  Abbott :  Behind  the  Scenes  with  the  Mediums,  pp.  286  ct  scq.  Also, 
Truesdell:  Bottom  Facts,  p.  238.  And  Maskelyne  .'n  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  April  18, 
1885. 

40  Abbott:    op.  cit.,  284. 

41  Truesdell :    op.  cit.,  228  e t.  scq. 

42  All  the  noted  mediums  who  have  used  rope  or  tape  as  alleged  control  of 
the  body,  have  met  disaster  in  such  a  way  as  to  cast  discredit  upon  any  investi- 
gation in  which  such  a  control  is  relied  upon.  For  an  example,  the  Davenport 
brothers  were  driven  out  of  Liverpool,  Huddersfield,  and  Leeds  (.England),  be- 
cause they  refused  to  proceed  after  a  certain  knot  was  used  on  their  wrists,  which, 
according  to  a  medical  examiner,  did  not  endanger  circulation  (Podmore:  Mod- 
ern Spiritualism,  2:60).  The  insecurity  of  their  bonds  was  revealed  in  Ithaca, 
N.  Y.,  by  the  students  of  Cornell  University,  when  they  flashed  on  lights  at  the 
moment  phenomena  were  occurring  and  the  brothers  were  seen  by  the  audience  to 
be  "dodging  about  the  stage  brandishing  guitars  and  playing  tunes  and  waving  at 
the  same  time  tall  poles  surmounted  by  phosphorescent  spook  pictures."  (Herman: 
Cosmopolitan  Magazine.    Quoted  by  Evans:    The  Spirit  World  Unmasked,  p.  144). 

43  Anaesthesia  for  automatic  phenomena  may  be  illustrated  by  the  "automatic 
writing"  of  a  normal  subject.  The  hand  writes  intelligently,  but  the  subject  is 
conscious  of  neither  its  movement  nor  its  communication.  Miss  Burton  was  seen 
to  put  her  anaesthetic  hand  up  to  the  side  of  her  face  upon  which  she  exclaimed 


Fig.   18. —  Fabric  Imprint  Made  by  "James Right  Hand." 

(Size  almost  natural — .93  diameters.) 


(  /  'ide,  pp.  530,  539. ) 


INVESTIGATION    WITH    A  "TRUMPET"   MEDIUM  533 

bulistic  phenomena44  makes  these  findings  entirely  compatible  with  the 
honesty  and  sincerity  of  our  psychic. 


that  a  spirit  hand  was  touching  her  face  (Jr.  Am.S.P.R.,  4:55)-  Untying  and 
replacing  bonds  or  stretching  beyond  them,  and  even  providing  and  concealing 
apparatus,  such  as  reaching-rods,  collapsible  cups,  silk  gloves,  phosphorescent  ma- 
terials, etc.,  to  be  used  later  in  the  seance,  may  at  times  be  automatic  phenomena, 
beyond  the  knowledge  or  control  of  the  psychic.  It  is  likely  that  many  alleged 
exposes  rest  upon  this  foundation,  doing  serious  injustice  to  the  psychic.  When 
Mrs.  E.'s  control,  the  Hindu,  manages  to  materialize  a  wire  in  such  a  way  as  to 
make  it  obvious  that  the  wire  was  brought  into  the  seance-room  secreted  in  the 
psychic's  shirt-waist  (Jr. Am.S.P.R.,  4:65-68),  it  is  entirely  possible  that  the 
control  put  it  there  during  Mrs.  E.'s  waking  state,  by  causing  her  to  perform  the 
action  automatically  and  thus  unconsciously.  Sometimes  there  is  a  residuum  of 
Eesthesia  for  automatic  phenomena,  which,  however,  is  wholly  inadequate  to  ac- 
quaint the  subject  with  the  nature  and  extent  of  the  phenomena:  Miss  Burton, 
in  her  normal  state,  says  that  "when  the  trumpet  is  in  use  during  the  'independent' 
singing,  whistling,  and  speaking,  she  cannot  speak  when  addressed  without  an  in- 
terruption of  the  physical  manifestation  .  .  .  that  she  is  not  conscious  of  being 
used  except  for  a  feeling  of  constriction  about  her  throat  when  the  singing  and 
whistling  are  in  progress."  (Jr.  Am.S.P.R.,  3:707)-  There  is  indeed  sensibility 
in  the  anesthetic  parts  of  the  body  used  but,  as  Professor  James  says,  it  exists  in 
a  secondary  consciousness  (Principles  of  Psychology,  vol.  I,  p.  203)  and  is  not 
available  to  the  primary  consciousness  except  by  conquest  through  hypnosis  or 
other  psychopathic  technique. 

44  Amnesia  for  acts  of  the  body  when  the  subject  is  in  a  state  of  distraction, 
emotional  excitement,  sleep,  or  trance,  is  well  known.  As  Professor  James  says, 
the  amnesia  may  be  complete  for  the  deeper  states  of  trance  (Prin.  Psych.,  vol. 
II,  602),  in  which  case  the  phenomena  do  not  constitute  a  part  of  the  subject's 
memory  when  he  is  in  the  waking  state.  This  fact  is  abundantly  illustrated  by 
researches  in  hypnotism,  alternating  personality,  and  seance  phenomena.  B.  C.  A., 
in  a  secondary  phase  of  personality,  arises  from  bed,  writes  two  letters,  drops  one 
on  the  stairs  while  returning,  hides  the  other  in  a  glove-box,  goes  to  bed  and  to 
sleep,  without  contributing  an  item  to  her  primary  memory.  (Prince:  The  Un- 
conscious, 60-61).     Professional   literature   is   replete  with  celebrated  cases: 

Felida  X.,  by  Azam :  Hypnotisme,  Double  Conscience  et  Alterations  de  la 
Personnalite.     Paris,  1887. 

Louis  V.,  by  Bourri  et  Burot :    Variations  de  la  Personnalite.     Paris,  1888. 

Leonie  B.,  by  Janet:    L'Automatisme  Psychologique. 

Mary  Reynolds,  by  S.  Weir  Mitchell :  Harper's  Mag.,  May  i860,  and  James : 
Prin.  Psych.,  vol.  I,  p.  381. 

Ansel  Bourne,  by  James:    Prin.  Psych.,  vol.  I,  p.  391. 

Miss  Beauchamp,  by  Prince :    Dissociation  of  a  personality. 

See  also : 

My  Life  as  a  Dissociated  Personality,  by  B.  C.  A. 

Ribot:    Maladies  de  la  Personnalite.     Paris,  1885. 

Dessoir:    Das  Doppel-Ich. 

Proceedings  S.  P.  R. 

Seance  phenomena  offer  many  illustrations:    Permission  was  given  to  feel  the 


534  APPENDIX  D 

Further  experimentation  will  have  to  determine  whether  the 
"seance  personalities"  have  characteristic  rates  of  tapping,  power  to 
exert  force,  etc.,  and  how  they  compare  with  the  psychic's  normal  per- 
formance ;  whether  undisguised  finger-prints  of  the  "seance  personali- 
ties" differ  from  the  finger-prints  of  the  psychic ;  whether  any  phe- 
nomena can  be  produced  at  all  under  conditions  that  exclude  the  instru- 
mentality of  the  psychic's  body,  such  as  in  an  inclosed  space.  A  solu- 
tion of  these  problems  will  occupy  the  Society  in  the  next  series  of  in- 
vestigations. 


pulse  of  "Lenore,"  one  of  Miss  Burton's  "controls" ;  finger  and  thumb  marks  were 
later  revealed  on  the  psychic's  wrist  (Proceedings  Am.  S.P.R.,  5:52).  Although 
the  psychic's  hands  were  held  during  "independent"  whistling  in  the  trumpet,  her 
offensive  catarrhal  breath  was  clearly  detected  in  the  trumpet  (ibid.,  p.  47)  ;  and 
by  means  of  side-light  the  psychic  was  seen,  during  the  seance,  to  leave  her  seat 
and  lift  a  table,  without  Dr.  Milne,  who  was  holding  her  right  hand,  being  able 
to  detect  that  she  had  left  her  seat  (ibid.,  257).  In  the  photographs,  secured  by  co- 
operation of  the  "control"  "Dan,"  the  psychic  was  revealed  upon  one  occasion 
out  of  her  chair  (]r.  Am.  S.P.R.,  vol.  IV,  56),  and  upon  another,  with  a  tam- 
bourine in  her  teeth,  ready  to  throw  it  into  the  air  for  the  picture  (ibid.,  57). 
The  investigators  were  satisfied  that  Miss  Burton's  "waking  consciousness  was 
honest  and  that  her  trance  personality  was  knowingly  deceiving  her,"  (ibid.,  55), 
and  the  other  trance  personalities  claimed  as  much,  and,  besides  expressing  their 
regret,  kept  "Dan"  away  for  some  time. 

Under  the  heading  of  "  'Mediumships,'  or  'Possessions',"  James  (Principles 
of  Psychology,  vol.  I,  pp.  393  ff.)  says: 

"Whenever  the  secondary  state  is  well  developed,  no  memory  for  aught  that 
happened  during  it  remains  after  the  primary  consciousness  comes  back.  The 
subject  during  the  secondary  consciousness  speaks,  writes,  or  acts,  as  if  animated 
by  a  foreign  person,  and  often  names  this  foreign  person  and  gives  his  history.  .  .  . 
Usually  he  purports  to  be  the  spirit  of  a  dead  person.  .  .  .  Mediumistic  possession 
in  all  its  grades  seems  to  form  a  perfectly  natural  special  case  type  of  alternate 
personality,  and  the  susceptibility  to  it  in  some  form  is  by  no  means  an  uncommon 
gift,  in  persons  who  have  no  other  obvious  nervous  anomaly.  The  phenomena  are 
very  intricate,  and  are  only  just  beginning  to  be  studied  in  a  proper  scientific 
way."     (p.  393). 

He  makes  a  confession  of  his  belief  that  the  "control"  may  be  altogether  dif- 
ferent from  any  possible  waking  self,  knowing  facts  about  persons  the  psychic  has 
never  seen  and  does  not  know  the  names  of,  because  he  is  "persuaded  that  a  serious 
study  of  these  trance-phenomena  is  one  of  the  greatest  needs  of  psychology"  and 
would  encourage  investigation,     (p.  396). 


INVESTIGATION    WITH   A   "TRUMPET"    MEDIUM  535 


3.  The  Relation  of  the  "Seance  Personalities"  to  the  Psychic's 

Mind. 

Although,  on  the  basis  of  experimental  results,  it  is  premature  to 
discuss  this  question,  it  can  scarcely  be  passed  over  in  silence  in  this 
report,  since  it  was  the  primary  end  and  starting-point  in  the  experi- 
menter's research.  It  was  only  after  sitting  in  the  Society's  weekly 
seances  from  September  till  March  without  making  a  step  of  progress  in 
having  the  seance  personalities  take  his  preliminary  clairvoyance-tele- 
pathic experiment  with  the  playing-cards,  that  he  consented  to  turn  his 
attention  to  the  phenomena  at  hand.  Many  of  the  phenomena  have  in- 
deed been  of  the  psychical  order,  sitters  frequently  recognizing  in  com- 
munications "splendid  tests,"  but  they  have  one  and  all  been  what  may 
be  described  as  of  a  memorial  or  historical  character,  such  as  have  con- 
stantly led  investigators  to  conflicting  opinions  concerning  their  super- 
normal nature,  and  for  this  reason  the  experimenter  intended  to  leave 
their  investigation  to  others  who  see  some  hope  in  their  enterprise,  and 
to  adhere  resolutely  to  communications  concerning  new  facts  so  con- 
trolled by  himself  that  results  can  be  treated  by  statistical  analysis.  The 
parent  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  in  London,  and  the  American 
Society  for  Psychical  Research,  in  New  York,  with  other  societies 
abroad,  are  prosecuting  with  rare  courage  and  skill  the  kind  of  research 
to  which  reference  has  just  been  made,  which  has  for  its  end  the  proof 
of  man's  survival  of  death,  and  to  them  the  experimenter  is  willing  to 
leave  the  field  clear.  But  the  whole  commercialization  of  the  occult  in 
this  country  rests  upon  the  assumption  that  the  "seance  personalities," 
or  the  entranced  occultists,  or  clairvoyants,  or  automatists,  have  super- 
normal means  of  acquiring  knowledge  of  new  facts  in  our  world  and 
are  consequently  competent  to  advise  the  sitter  or  client  in  important 
matters.  It  is  this  supernormal  capacity  of  acquiring  knowledge  of  new 
facts  in  our  world  that  the  experimenter  proposed  to  investigate,  and  as 
a  psychologist  he  will  be  particularly  interested  in  the  psychical  processes 
which  account  for  the  supernormal  knowledge,  in  case  it  is  found,  or  for 
belief  in  it  by  the  psychic,  in  case  it  is  not  found.  In  either  case  the 
relation  of  the  "seance  personality"  to  the  psychic's  mind  will  be  a  pri- 
mary consideration. 

This  declaration  of  intention  may  be  regarded  as  a  forecast 
of  further  work  to  be  undertaken  by  the  Society. 

For  the  present  the  experimenter  must  content  himself  with  report- 


536  APPENDIX  D 

ing  a  few  of  the  phenomena  which  have  come  to  his  notice  and  have  a 
bearing  upon  the  characteristics  and  incidental  traits  of  the  "seance  per- 
sonalities" and  their  probable  relation  to  the  psychic's  mind. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  psychic  has  not  only  spent  her 
time  and  energy  freely,  without  pay,  in  the  Society's  research,  but  she 
has  upon  all  occasions  willingly  acceded  to  any  demands  which  the  So- 
ciety, or  the  experimenter  in  particular,  has  made,  frequently  showing 
sincere  interest  in  the  acquisition  of  a  scientific  proof  of  the  truth,  what- 
ever it  may  prove  to  be,  which  underlies  the  phenomena  which  occur  in 
her  presence. 

In  all  their  communications  the  "seance  personalities"  evince  the 
same  interest  and  willingness  to  cooperate  in  this  research.  The  records 
of  the  Society  contain  abundant  evidence  of  this ;  but  a  few  quotations 
will  serve  to  illustrate:  "Katie,"  the  automatic  voice,  a  frank  and  sweet 
child  of  about  12  years  of  age,  said  at  the  close  of  the  seance  of  March 
28th,  after  the  kymographic  apparatus  had  been  used,  "We  are  anxious 
to  have  the  truth  demonstrated."  During  the  same  day,  "Dr.  Truman," 
a  dignified  "trumpet"  voice,  said,  "We  are  all  very  interested  in  this  ex- 
periment, as  much  as  yourselves,"  and  "Professor  James"  said,  "We  are 
very  pleased  with  the  experiment."  In  the  next  seance  (April  4th) 
"Professor  James"  said,  "I  wish  I  might  be  able  to  speak  more  distinct- 
ly so  as  to  make  a  perfect  record,"  and  "Dr.  Truman"  at  the  close  said, 
"We  thank  you  for  your  painstaking  interest  and  work."  Thus  it  was 
all  the  way  through  the  year's  work  until  the  measurement  of  "psychic 
force"  began. 

At  this  point  apprehension  became  evident ;  three  out  of  the  five 
remaining  seances  were  blanks ;  the  "seance  personalities"  could  not  get 
sufficient  force  to  carry  out  the  program,  or  if  they  did,  it  was  largely 
misdirected.  Upon  the  supposition  that  the  causes  of  failure  were  occult, 
the  misadventures  of  the  investigation  cannot  yet  be  explained ;  upon 
the  supposition  that  they  were  natural,  a  very  simple  explanation  sug- 
gests itself.  A  month  before,  the  psychic  removed  some  printer's  ink 
from  her  fingers  and  from  her  trumpet.  Since  then  the  kymograph 
with  its  respiration  and  pulse  curves  furnished  a  distraction ;  but  now, 
with  the  scales  and  the  telegraph  instrument  to  the  fore  again,  there 
was  a  chance  for  imprints  of  fingers  and  traces  of  contact ;  the  "seance 
personalities"  had  to  have  her  "magnetize"  (explore  and  test?)  these 
instruments ;  progress  in  this  was  probably  made  even  in  the  blank 
seances ;    what  phenomena  could  not  be  safely  attempted  were  not  pro- 


INVESTIGATION    WITH    A   "TRUMPET"   MEDIUM  537 

duced ;    what   could  be,  were  carried  out  with  a  sole  determination  to 
leave  no  finger-prints. 

The  evident  apprehension  of  the  "seance  personalities"  is  matched 
by  the  disquiet  of  the  psychic  (showing  some  community  of  conscious- 
ness, possibly  subliminal)  and  were  it  not  for  the  evident  sincerity  and 
honesty  of  the  psychic,  it  would  be  the  simplest  explanation  to  consider 
her  direct  and  conscious  agency  the  cause  of  the  phenomena,  for  (i)  the 
phenomena  were  such  as  a  disquieted  psychic  herself  would  produce,  and 
(2)  the  guarded  method  of  their  production  is  such  as  she  herself  woidd 
employ. 

The  night  preceding  the  seance  (April  nth)  on  which  we  returned 
to  contact  phenomena,  the  psychic  is  said  to  have  been  worried  and  to 
have  slept  but  little ;  and  just  before  the  seance  one  of  the  sitters,  who 
lives  in  the  same  house,  mentioned  to  the  experimenter  that  the  psychic 
had  passed  through  the  physical  phase  of  mediumship  long  ago,  imply- 
ing that  it  would  be  agreeable  to  have  the  investigation  pass  on  to  other 
fields,  and,  a  few  minutes  later,  to  the  experimenter's  consternation,45 
she  actually  spoke  something  about  finger-prints. 

"Colonel  Roland,"  a  "trumpet  voice"  and  one  of  the  regular  "con- 
trols," had  already  exhibited  his  perplexity  concerning  the  printer's  ink, 
in  communications  to  President  Booker  at  a  private  seance  in  which  he 
was  one  of  the  sitters,  by  suggesting  that  he  (sic)  use  plaster  of  paris 
or  paraffin  instead  of  so  much  black;  and  in  the  seance  of  April  25th, 
after  "he"  had  knocked  over  the  trumpet,  he  was  reported  by  "Katie" 
as  saying  that  President  Booker  will  understand  why  it  fell.  The  im- 
plication is  erroneous  (this  fact  will  be  used  later),  but  it  serves  to  re- 
veal an  apprehension  that  explains  why  the  trumpet  has  been  so  seldom 
used,  why  it  was  handled  through  fabric,  why  contact  on  the  scales  was 
also  of  a  guarded  and  indirect  kind,  and  why  the  telegraph  instrument 
was  not  further  used. 

The  misuse  of  force  would  seem  to  amount  to  pretty  good  evidence 
of  sheer  "stalling"  on  the  part  of  the  "seance  personalities."  During  the 
seance  of  April  25th,  "Colonel  Roland"  levitated  the  trumpet,  even 
placed  it  on  the  table,  with  the  intention,  according  to  "Katie,"  of  set- 
ting it  on  the  scales.  The  same  amount  of  force  applied  to  the  scales 
would  have  been  to  some  purpose.  During  the  seance  of  May  9th  the 
table  was  hauled  out  toward  the  center  of  the  room  about  a  foot  and  a 


45  Finger-prints  were  in  view  as  marks  of  identification,  and  were  taken  of  all 
the  sitters  and  the  psychic,  before  the  seance  of  May  2. 


53S  APPENDIX   D 

half,  and  part  of  the  way  back  again;  the  force  applied  to  the  telegraph 
instrument,  or  to  the  scales  in  the  closet,  would  have  been  of  service.46 

Whether  miscarriage  of  experiments  was  due  to  apprehension, 
which  would  have  to  rest  upon  lack  of  knowledge,  or  upon  an  inclina- 
tion to  frustrate  rather  than  to  aid  the  investigation,  cannot  be  definitely 
determined,  but  the  weight  of  probability  falls  upon  the  former  explana- 
tion, since  there  are  other  instances  of  a  curious  limitation  of  knowl- 
edge.47 

"Colonel  Roland's"  assumption  (April  25th)  that  President  Booker 
knew  why  the  trumpet  fell,  is  a  case  in  point.  Whether  the  trumpet  had 
been  handled  during  the  preceding  seance  with  a  telescopic  aluminum 
grasping  hook  ("lazy-tongs,"  the  familiar  old  standby  for  producing 
physical  phenomena  at  a  distance  from  the  medium  in  a  dark  seance) 
which  failed  to  take  hold  because  of  a  thin  film  of  vaseline,  or  with 
ribbed-silk  gloves  to  which  the  surface  would  be  equally  elusive,  one 
cannot  be  certain,  but  that  one  or  the  other  of  the  cases  applies  is  the 
simplest  explanation  for  the  above  assumption,  stated  during  a  seance 
when  the  trumpet  was  in  perfect  order  and  when  President  Booker  did 
not  in  fact  know  why  it  fell. 

"Professor  James,"  although  showing  deep  interest  in  the  progress 
of  the  research,  has  upon  more  than  one  occasion,  when  the  experiment- 
er asked  him  a  question  of  psychological  or  technical  import,  most  un- 
naturally disappeared. 

"William  Stead,"  who  was  accustomed  to  come  to  encourage 
President  Booker  in  his  investigations,  shocked  some  of  the  sitters  be- 
yond measure  in  one  seance  by  not  being  able  to  give  the  president  the 
name  of  his  daughter,  whom  he  left  in  charge  of  Julia's  Bureau. 


46  One  is  forcibly  reminded  of  the  continued  failure  of  Eusapia's  "control," 
"John  King,"  to  take  advantage  of  his  opportunities  when  scientific  instruments 
were  used ;  and  of  the  classical  case  of  substitution  of  one  kind  of  phenomena  for 
another,  which  is  a  constant  marvel  to  the  enquirers  into  Zollner's  grounds  for 
belief  in  the  occult.  Zollner  (Transcendental  Physics,  London,  1880,  pp.  97-113) 
asked  that  (1)  two  solid  rings  of  different  wood  be  interlinked;  (2)  the  twist  in 
two  snail  shells  be  reversed ;  (3)  a  knot  be  tied  in  an  endless  cord  cut  from  a 
bladder;  (4)  a  stub  of  a  paraffin  candle  be  put  in  a  hollow  glass  ball.  Slade  sub- 
stituted: (1)  placing  the  two  rings  on  the  jointed  leg  of  a  stand;  (2)  making 
the  snail  shells  appear  on  a  slate  he  was  holding  under  the  table;  (3)  tying  knots 
in  a  cord  that  had  two  ends,  so  as  to  suspend  the  endless  cord  from  it.  Zollner 
was  elated;    his  "tests"  were  improved! 

47  The  alternative  of  "poor  conditions"  is  scarcely  worth  considering,  since 
the  phenomena  called  for  are  of  the  same  class  as  those  produced,  and  are  as 
simple  and  easy  to  execute. 


INVESTIGATION    WITH   A      TRUMPET      MEDIUM 


539 


Near  the  end  of  the  seance  of  March  28th,  "Katie,"  speaking  ap- 
parently for  "Dr.  Hodgson"  and  "Professor  James,"  who  had  been 
watching  the  instruments,  said  they  thought  that  neither  of  the  writing- 
fingers  had  recorded  during  the  independent  speaking,  whereas  the  res- 
piration records  were  complete.  On  May  2d,  she  reported  that  "Pro- 
fessor James"  had  used  his  right  hand  in  exerting  force  on  the  scales, 
whereas  the  impression  on  the  lamp-black  indicates  a  small  left  hand, 
fingers  folded  in  and  thumb  extending  slightly  to  the  right.  (See  Fig- 
ure 18.)  And  during  the  seance  of  April  18th,  "she"said  that  "Sir 
William  Crookes"  was  present,  so  "Dr.  Truman"  informed  her,  whereas 
the  noted  scientist  is  still  among  the  living. 

The  telegraph  instrument  has  given  us  inexpert  tapping,  but  no 
code.  The  operating,  said  to  have  been  done  by  "Phillips,"  the  wireless 
operator  who  went  down  on  the  Titanic,  seems  to  show  that  he  loses  his 
knowledge  of  telegraphy  when  he  becomes  a  "seance  personality." 

This  limitation  of  knowledge  and  astounding  stupidity  of  "trance 
personalities"  is,  of  course,  familiar  to  readers  of  reports  of  investiga- 
tions in  the  proceedings  of  the  two  societies  for  psychical  research,  and 
elsewhere ;  and  is  explained,  according  to  investigators,  by  the  fact  that 
the  discarnate  "personality"  on  his  side  must  enter  an  abnormal  state, 
as  the  "psychic"  does  on  this  side,  in  order  to  communicate  at  all, — 
even  then  perhaps  only  through  the  psychic's  usual  "control," — and  that 
much  practice  is  needed  in  order  to  purge  these  communications  of  in- 
tellectual chaos.48  But  this  tremendous  limitation  is  not  recognized  by 
"sitters"  who  frequent  seances :  is  not  fully  recognized,  I  suspect,  in  our 
own  Society. 


48  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  records  in  his  "Survival  of  Man"  (p.  292)  an  interesting 
instance  of  mental  blindness  on  the  part  of  the  Myers  control,  communicating 
through  Mrs.  Thompson,  at  Edgbaston,  February  19,  1901.  Lodge  had  just  sug- 
gested :  "You  remember  the  S.  P.  R."  Control :  "Do  not  think  that  I  have  for- 
gotten. But  I  have.  I  have  forgotten  just  now.  Let  me  think.  .  .  .  They  tell  me 
it  was  my  best  love,  that  society.  They  will  help  me.  ...  I  am  going  to  talk  to 
vou  clearly  and  very  distinctly  in  April.     I  do  not  know  my  mother's  name  now." 

Professor  Hyslop  writes  that  he  has  all  but  abandoned  the  theory  of  com- 
munication that  involves  an  abnormal  or  trance  state  in  the  discarnate  personality ; 
he  is  inclined  to  think  that  "the  pictographic  process  of  communication  and  the 
half  mechanical  conditions  for  letting  messages  through  may  account  for  all  the 
appearances  of  trance  or  dream  state  in  the  communicator."  This  view  he  devel- 
oped in  the  Proceedings  Am.S.P.R.,  1912,  vol.  VI  (vide,  ch.  II,  Difficulties  of 
communicating,  pp.  48  ff.). 


540  APPENDIX  D 

Is  it  possible  that  the  "seance  personalities"  are  limited  in  their 
knowledge  to  the  content  of  the  psychic's  mind  ?49 

It  was  the  purpose  of  the  experimenter  to  discuss  at  the  last  seance 
(May  9th)  somewhat  in  detail  with  the  "trumpet  voices"  the  principal 
results  of  his  investigation,  and  get  their  explanations,  and  their  sugges- 
tions  for   further  work.     But  the  "trumpet  voices"  did  not  come,  and 


49  It  is  well  known  that  "messages"  delivered  in  trance  in  automatic  voice 
or  automatic  writing,  and  that  auditory  and  visual  hallucinations  (voices  and  vis- 
ions) perceived  by  a  'sensitive'  often  reproduce  experience,  sometimes  much  elab- 
orated, which  the  subject  can  at  times  identify,  but  also  which  he  often  cannot 
recognize  for  the  reason  that  it  has  been  forgotten,  or  was  a  so-called  unconscious, 
perception,  or  belonged  to  a  secondary  state  of  consciousness.  Miss  X.  looks  across 
the  room  and  tries  vainly  to  read  the  title  of  a  strange  book  lying  on  her  table ; 
she  turns  to  her  writing  and  sees  on  the  blank  paper  "The  Valley  of  the  Lilies," 
which  proves  to  be  the  title  of  the  book  never  seen  before,  but  no  doubt  sublim- 
inally  read  (Myers:  Human  Personality,  vol.  I,  pp.  587-8).  She  looks  through  a 
window  and  reads  on  the  pane  a  newspaper  notice  of  the  death  of  a  friend;  she 
finds  the  notice  in  a  paper  containing  some  items  she  remembers  having  read ; 
again,  a  reproduction  of  a  subliminal  impression.  Miss  B.  looks  into  a  crystal  and 
sees  a  wood,  a  lake,  and  men,  and  witnesses  a  complex  murder  scene ;  the  vision 
was  a  correct  representation  of  a  scene  in  one  of  Marie  Corelli's  novels  which  she 
had  once  read  but  forgotten  (Prince:  The  Unconscious,  p.  42).  B.  C.  A.,  whose 
amnesia  for  her  conduct  in  a  secondary  phase  of  personality,  in  rising,  going  down 
stairs,  writing  two  letters,  dropping  one  on  the  stairs  when  returning,  and  hiding 
the  other  in  a  glove-box,  has  been  noticed,  looked  into  a  crystal  and  witnessed  the 
whole  scene  ;  in  hypnosis  the  experience  was  remembered  and  even  the  thoughts 
which  accompanied  each  act  were  described ;  the  vision  was  a  reproduction  of  ex- 
perience belonging  to  a  secondary  phase  of  personality  (Prince:  op.  cit.,  60-1). 
Miss  C,  in  hypnotic  trance,  narrated  highly  elaborated  fabrications  of  her  forgotten 
experience ;  on  one  occasion  the  spirit  of  a  fictitious  person,  purporting  to  have 
lived  in  the  time  of  Richard  II.,  gave  many  intimate  details  about  the  Earl  and 
Countess  of  Salisbury,  and  other  personages  of  the  time;  the  genealogical  data  were 
found  to  be  correct,  although  they  were  such  as  could  be  ascertained  only  through 
critical  historical  research.  In  her  normal  state  Miss  C.  could  not  imagine  how 
she  could  have  obtained  this  knowledge,  for  she  was  in  entire  ignorance  of  it ; 
through  automatic  writing  it  was  discovered  that  the  facts  were  to  be  found  in  a 
book  called  "The  Countess  Maud,"  by  E.  Holt,  which  had  been  read  by  an  aunt, 
14  years  previously,  to  Miss  C.  when  she  was  about  II  years  of  age.  (Journal  S.P.. 
R.,  July  1906;  August  191 1  ;  also  Prince:  Op.  cit.,  19-20).  One  of  Prince's  sub- 
jects, "while  in  a  condition  of  considerable  stress  of  mind  owing  to  the  recurrence 
of  the  anniversary  of  her  wedding  day,  had  a  vision  of  her  deceased  husband,  who 
addressed  to  her  a  certain  consoling  message.  It  afterwards  transpired  that  this 
message  was  an  actual  reproduction  of  the  words  of  a  friend  quoted  to  her  in  the 
course  of  a  conversation  some  months  previously,  as  the  words  of  her  own  husband 
to  herself  just  before  his  death.  In  this  vision  the  words  were  put  into  the  mouth 
of  another  person,  the  subject's  deceased  husband,  and  were  actually  heard  as  an, 


INVESTIGATION    WITH    A   "TRUMPET"   MEDIUM  541 

discussion  had  to  be  undertaken  with  "Katie."  She  assured  the  experi- 
menter that  he  has  been  right  all  along  in  his  assumption  that  "Dr.  Tru- 
man" and  "Colonel  Roland"  have  known  all  that  he  has  been  doing  in 
the  conduct  of  his  investigation,  and  that  they  know  his  results ;  she 
said  that  they  commend  his  effort;  and  that  they  will  be  delighted  if  the 
proposed  report  is  made  to  the  Am.  S.  P.  R.,  and  the  projected  thorough 
investigation  with  the  psychic  is  undertaken  next  year. 


hallucination."  (Prince:  Of.  cit.,  40).  The  messages  received  in  automatic  script 
through  Mrs.  Verrall  are  often  found  to  be  quotations  from  passages  in  English, 
Latin,  and  Greek,  which  she  has  read  but  forgotten  (Proceedings  S.P.R.,  October 
1906,  ch.  12).  "Subconscious  fabrication"  seems  a  reasonable  explanation  for  the 
life-histories  given  by  controls  who  fail  to  prove  their  identity.  Is  it  not  likely  that 
Mrs.  Piper's  Phinuit  is  an  etymological  descendant  of  "Finne,"  the  control  of  a 
Mr.  Cooke  before  whom  Mrs.  Piper  first  went  into  trance?  (Vide,  Podmore: 
Naturalisation  of  the  Supernatural,  307  ff.).  Was  not  Mrs.  "Smead's"  "Harrison 
Clarke,"  who  said  he  fought  at  Shiloh  in  the  125th  N.  Y.  Regiment,  and  who 
later  confessed  that  Clarke  was  not  his  real  name  and  explained  that  he  deserted 
the  N.  Y.  Regiment  and  joined  one  that  actually  appeared  at  Shiloh  but  refused 
to  give  further  particulars,  a  psychic  fabrication?  (Vide,  Hyslop :  Apparent  sub- 
conscious fabrication.    Journal  of  Abnormal  Psych.,  1906,  i:2o6ff.). 

Morton  Prince,  who  has  much  experience  with  spontaneous  and  induced 
states  of  secondary  consciousness,  says : 

"The  reproduction  of  subconscious  perceptions  and  forgotten  knowledge  in 
dreams,  visions,  hypnosis,  trance  states,  by  automatic  writing,  etc.,  is  interesting 
apart  from  the  theory  of  memory.  Facts  of  this  kind  offer  a  rational  interpreta- 
tion of  many  well-authenticated  phenomena  exploited  in  spiritualistic  literature. 
Much  of  the  surprising  information  given  by  planchette,  table  rapping,  and  similar 
devices  commonly  employed  by  mediums,  depends  upon  the  translation  of  for- 
gotten dormant  experiences  into  manifestations  of  this  sort."  (Prince:  The  Un- 
conscious, 59). 

When  "Annette"  gives  the  spirit  message  through  Mrs.  Holland's  automatic 
script,  "Tell  her  this  comes  from  the  friend  who  loved  cradles  and  cradled  things," 
how  can  one  be  sure  that  it  is  not  a  slightly  elaborated  reproduction  of  the  words 
of  a  letter  received  20  years  previously  by  the  automatist  from  a  friend  of  Annette's 
quoting  from  the  latter's  will :  "Because  I  love  cradles  and  cradled  things"  ? 
(Proceedings  S.P.R.,  1908,  21:288-9;    also.  Prince:    op.  cit.,  22). 

To  prove  that  "messages"  are  not  reproductions,  simple  or  elaborated,  of  ex- 
perience in  some  phase  of  the  psychic's  personality,  the  Society  is  evidently  under 
the  necessity  of  controlling  the  facts  to  be  reproduced  in  some  such  way  as  they 
are  controlled  in  the  experimenter's  card  experiment.  Statistical  analysis  would  be 
capable  of  determining  whether  any  of  the  "seance  personalities"  are  independent 
of  the  psychic's  mind,  and  would  throw  immediate  light  on  the  processes  employed 
in  an  unrecognized  means  of  acquiring  knowledge.  Until  this  step  is  taken,  all 
"spirit  messages"  are  likely  to  be  regarded  by  the  world  at  large  as  limited  to  the 
class  of  "messages"  already  known  to  be  reproductions  or  elaborations  of  the  psy- 
chic's own  experience. 


542  APPENDIX  D 

The  experimenter  was  and  is  very  grateful  for  this  assurance,  for 
he  was  beginning  to  feel  that  his  frank  assumption  of  full  knowledge 
of  the  course  of  investigation,  on  the  part  of  the  psychic's  "controls," 
was  not  justified.  All  now  understand  each  other;  everything  has  been 
open  and  above-board  between  the  experimenter  and  the  "controls." 
Their  courage  and  "fanaticism  for  truth"  are  equal  to  the  experimenter's, 
for  although  the  results  so  far  seem  to  show  that  the  "seance  personali- 
ties" speak  with  the  psychic's  vocal  organs,  that  they  effect  physical  phe- 
nomena with  her  hands,  and  that  their  knowledge  is  possibly  limited  to  the 
contents  of  her  mind,  they  desire  that  the  experimenter  shall  put  this 
evidence  on  record,  and  shall  follow  it  up  with  thorough-going  investi- 
gation next  year  to  establish  fully  and  clearly  the  exact  truth. 

The  implications  in  this  report  the  experimenter  believes  to  be  un- 
avoidable upon  the  basis  of  the  facts  in  his  hands  at  the  present  time. 
He  remains  open-minded,  however,  and  will  not  ignore  good  evidence 
for  the  occult  phenomena  of  "independent"  voices,  levitation,  personali- 
ties ;  indeed,  he  is  even  anxious  for  the  sake  of  the  interest  of  his  friends 
in  the  Society,  to  seek  and  find  such  evidence.  If  there  are  such  occult 
phenomena,  he  believes  the  present  program  of  the  Society's  experi- 
mental section,  involving  the  use  of  scientific  instruments,  is  adequate 
to  place  them  incontestably  before  the  eyes  of  science. 

The  experimenter  has  already  expressed  his  high  respect  for  the 
psychic,  and  he  wishes  to  attest  the  sincerity  of  the  sitters  in  the  So- 
ciety's seances,  their  evident  high  motives  in  contributing  time  and 
money  to  an  investigation  which  in  its  nature  must  at  times  have  grown 
tiresome,  and  their  confidence  in  the  experimenter  who  was  frankly  sail- 
ing an  unsounded  sea.  He  commends  their  harmony  and  orderliness, 
which  insured  the  psychic  from  the  dangers  of  pocket  flash-lights  and  of 
"grabbing"  in  the  dark.  He  trusts  that  they,  and  the  other  members  of 
the  Society,  appreciate  the  seriousness  of  the  import  of  the  experimental 
results  so  far  obtained,  and  he  hopes  that  they  will  give  unreserved  sup- 
port to  the  proposed  thorough-going  scientific  investigation  next  year  in 
order  that  this  import  may  be  either  revised  or  verified  according  to  the 
facts  found. 

Perhaps  a  paragraph  on  the  principles  of  interpretation  of  phe- 
nomena should  be  offered  here  for  the  consideration  of  sitters  who  have 
not  had  formal  scientific  training.  This  Society  is  a  research  society, 
and  its  existence  can  only  be  justified  by  the  use  of  the  methods  of  in- 
vestigation common  to  all  research — scientific  methods.50    These  involve 


60  The  scientific  method  ordinarily  involves  the  use  of  instruments  to  extend 


INVESTIGATION    WITH   A  "TRUMPET      MEDIUM 


543 


(i)  experiments  for  the  production  of  simple  or  selected  facts;  (2) 
interpretation  of  causes  of  these  facts  according  to  the  "law  of  parsi- 
mony";  (3)  the  testing  of  the  interpretation  by  new  experiments;  and 
so  on.  Now,  interpretation  of  the  causes  which  produce  our  facts  must, 
in  the  beginning,  be  thoroughly  natural,  recognized  everywhere  in  the 
scientific  world ;  only  when  we  get  phenomena  that  cannot  be  so  inter- 
preted are  we  warranted  in  revising  the  limited  interpretation.  We  can- 
not start  out  with  the  assumption  that  there  are  "independent"  voices, 
levitation,  personalities ;  we  must  start  with  the  assumption  that  these 
phenomena  are  only  apparently  independent,  if  we  are  ever  to  get  a 
proof  that  they  are  actually  independent,  and  if  we  court  the  attention 
of  the  scientific  world  for  our  psychical  research.61 

The  experimenter  believes  that  the  scientific   man  will   read   with 
approval  the  Society's  first  report.     He  cannot  but  appreciate  the   fact 

the  normal  powers  of  observation,  which  are  notoriously  fallible  under  the  condi- 
tions of  dark  seances,  that  not  only  exclude  vision  but  offer  sound  stimuli  of 
minimal  intensity  and  facility  for  hallucination  of  touch  perception,  to  say  nothing 
of  wearying  the  attention  by  long  sittings  and  misdirecting  it  by  the  production  of 
undetermined  phenomena.  A  little  reflection  will  suffice  to  recognize  the  value  of 
the  use  of  scientific  instruments  to  man  in  his  effort  to  understand  the  forces  about 
him  and  to  subject  them  to  his  control.  Sunlight  appears  to  be  homogeneous;  the 
prism  spreads  it  out  into  the  spectrum  colors  for  each  of  which  the  wave  length 
and  frequency  have  been  measured.  The  earth  looks  flat ;  its  shadow  on  the  moon, 
the  telescopic  view  of  a  sailing  vessel  at  sea,  and  circumnavigation,  show  it  to  be 
spherical.  The  microscope  reveals  the  malarial  parasite  in  the  blood,  and  also  in 
the  stomach-walls  of  the  anopheles  mosquito  responsible  for  the  patient's  infection, 
dispelling  the  superstition  that  inhalation  of  the  miasma  of  the  swamp  is  the  cause 
of  the  fever.  The  chronoscope,  by  measuring  time  in  thousandths  of  a  second, 
enables  us  to  learn  that  a  nervous  "current"  is  propagated  at  a  rate  less  than  200 
feet  a  second,  and  that  it  cannot  be  of  the  nature  of  an  electric  current  or  of  light, 
which  travels  186,000  miles  a  second,  or  of  sound  that  travels  1,100  feet  a  second. 
Scientific  instruments  have  made  possible  our  special  sciences  of  astronomy,  chem- 
istry, physics,  biology,  medicine,  physiology,  psychology,  etc.,  and  have  made  our 
world  more  intelligible  and  a  safer  and  a  more  comfortable  place  in  which  to  live. 
Science  in  general  is  the  organization  of  our  observations  thus  facilitated,  and  may 
be  regarded  as  an  extension  of  our  common  sense,  analogous  to  the  steamship  and 
steel  rails  as  extensions  of  our  power  of  locomotion,  or  to  the  telegraph  and  the 
telephone  as  extensions  of  our  power  of  communication. 

51  This  demand  arising  from  the  "law  of  parsimony"  is  that  our  explana- 
tions or  interpretations,  besides  being  simple,  must  be  consistent  with  known 
causes.  It  is  only  upon  the  leverage  of  this  provision  that  proof  of  new  phenom- 
ena can  be  forced  into  scientific  recognition.  The  decisiveness  with  which  it  is 
established  corresponds  to  the  severity  of  the  criticism  it  has  successfully  with- 
stood. 


544  APPENDIX  D 

that  the  Society  is  proceeding  scientifically,  and  the  experimenter  pre- 
dicts that  he  will  be  waiting  with  interest  for  the  Society's  second  report. 
Having  thus  obtained  his  attention  and  respect,  all  the  Society  needs  to 
do  to  prove  the  existence  of  unusual  or  supernormal  causes  is  to  show 
by  records  of  properly  controlled  scientific  instruments  that  they  occur, 
and  occur  regularly  under  definite  conditions. 

It  should  be  definitely  recorded,  for  the  Society  and  the  world, 
that  the  obligation  of  producing  phenomena  which  cannot  possibly  be 
explained  by  a  direct  and  a  not  unfamiliar  use  of  the  psychic's  body  and 
mind  rests  upon  the  "seance  personalities,"  so  long  as  the  Society, 
through  its  officers,  its  investigation  committee,  its  experimenter,  and  its 
psychic,  is  providing  seance  conditions  under  which  any  phenomena  at 
all  take  place. 

The  experimenter  wishes  to  express  especial  obligations  to  the  presi- 
dent for  many  hours'  assistance  in  this  and  related  psychical  research, 
to  the  secretary,  for  faithful  service  in  recording  his  dictations  during 
the  Society's  seances,  and  to  the  treasurer  for  valuable  assistance  in  the 
acquisition  and  care  of  apparatus  used  in  our  laboratory. 

Respectfully  submitted,  May  28th,  1914. 

John  E.  Coover, 

Experimenter. 

The  Society  is  grateful  to  the  experimenter  for  his  careful  work 
and  wishes  to  commend  the  scientific  method  of  investigation  for  its  fu- 
ture work.  It  wishes  to  emphasize  the  facts,  however,  that  Dr.  Coover 
does  not  offer  his  explanations  as  final,  and  that  some  of  the  members 
of  the  investigation  committee  candidly  differ  with  them  on  the  basis  of 
the  present  data,  as  will  be  pointed  out  below.  They  are  glad  to  have 
his  explanations  expressed  as  they  are  in  order  that  the  world  of  ag- 
nostics can  see  that  naturalistic  interpretations  are  being  considered  from 
the  very  beginning  of  the  Society's  work;  our  proof,  then,  for  unusual 
causes  of  seance  phenomena  cannot  fail  to  be  valid. 

In  taking  up  seriatim  the  points  upon  which  some  members  differ 
with  the  explanations  offered  in  the  foregoing  report,  the  Society  wishes 
to  put  on  record  alternative  explanations  which  these  members  believe 
to  be  equally  compatible  with  the  data. 

(1)  The  "independent"  voices  may,  indeed,  be  produced  by  the  use 
of  the  psychic's  vocal  organs,  necessitating  a  sympathetic  activity  in  her 
throat ;  but  the  manner  may  be  yet  undiscovered.  An  independent  vocal 
apparatus  may  be  built  up  from  hers  and  materialized  to  operate  at  a 
distance  from  the  psychic's.    The  vocal  organs  of  the  psychic  may  even 


INVESTIGATION    WITH    A  "TRUMPET  "   MEDIUM  545 

produce  some  sound,  but  on  this  explanation  of  the  production  of  inde- 
pendent voices  it  would  be  negligible.  Some  evidence  to  support  this 
theory  was  quoted  by  the  experimenter :  The  physicians  felt  with  their 
hands  a  throat  two  feet  distant  from  Miss  Burton's  throat ; 52  and  while 
examining  the  psychic's  throat,  during  independent  singing  and  whis- 
tling, they  found  slight  sympathetic  activity,  but  could  hear  no  sound 
at  her  mouth.53  The  Report  stated  also  that  these  phenomena  occurred 
when  a  handkerchief  was  bound  over  her  mouth.  With  Mrs.  Blake  the 
sound  came  from  the  trumpet  in  broad  daylight,  when  only  her  fingers 
touched  it.54  It  could  scarcely  be  produced  by  her  vocal  organs  without 
detection,  even  assuming  that  the  trumpet  acts  as  a  resonator. 

(2)  The  trumpet  may  be  handled  by  a  materialized  hand  cast  in  the 
astral  mold  of  the  psychic's  arm ;  this  independent  hand  may  be  inti- 
mately connected  with  the  psychic's  hand  in  that  the  psychic's  energy  is 
used  for  its  movement ;  it  may  be  becomingly  draped.  The  writing- 
fingers  on  the  apparatus  might  have  been  pulled  out  of  place  by  this 
hand  manipulating  from  the  psychic's  hand ;  the  lamp-black  might  have 
been  removed  by  the  touch  of  the  drapery,  the  ink  would  naturally  be 
carried  from  the  telegraph  instrument,  and  the  lamp-black  from  the 
scale-cover,  to  the  trumpet,  and  finally  the  ink  might  be  left  on  the 
psychic's  fingers  in  the  process  of  dematerialization.  Some  evidence 
quoted  by  the  experimenter  supports  this  explanation :  A  noted  investi- 
gator saw  the  materialized  hand  of  a  "control"  six  feet  away  from  the 
left  hand  of  our  psychic,  Mrs.  Key ; 55  and  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  and  others 
felt  the  patting,  pulling,  and  pushing  of  a  hand  that  could  not  possibly 
have  been  Eusapia's.  Besides,  investigators,  Hamlin  Garland  and  Flower, 
among  others,  have,  as  quoted  by  the  experimenter,  found  the  bonds  of 
their  psychic,  Mrs.  S.,  intact  after  the  manipulation  of  objects,  including 
the  trumpet,  which  were  known  from  measurement  to  be  beyond  her 
reach. 

(3)  Blank  seances  and  the  alleged  misuse  of  force  are  recognized 
by  all  to  be  frequent,  but  they  need  not  be  due  to  ignorance  on  the  part 
of  the  "seance  personalities":  if  our  alternatives  suggested  above  are 
reasonable  explanations  of  the  data  at  hand,  there  must  be  many  complex 
conditions  to  be  obtained  for  successful  phenomena,  about  which  as  yet 
we  know  nothing  or  next  to  nothing.     These  not  being  under  our  con- 


52  I 'idi\  p.  507,  supra. 

53  Vide,  p.  520,  supra. 

54  Vide,  p.  506,  supra. 

55  Vide,  p.  504,  supra. 


546  APPENDIX  D 

trol,  it  is  more  or  less  accidental  when  they  are  fulfilled.  The  experi- 
menter himself  has  quoted  a  marked  case  of  "mental  blindness"  occur- 
ring in  Sir  Oliver  Lodge's  investigations,50  which  excuses  any  errors  or 
limitation  in  knowledge  on  the  part  of  our  "seance  personalities." 

(4)  The  apprehension  which  the  experimenter  sees  may  be  in  part 
real,  due  to  the  psychic's  learning  of  phenomena  that  do  not  seem  to  Se 
regular  and  which  she  does  not  understand,  and  in  part  fancied,  due  to 
chance  sequence  of  phenomena.  There  may  be  a  reason  which  we  do 
not  yet  understand  why  the  scale-covers  were  knocked  off  or  cleaned  off 
or  pressed  upon  through  fabric.  As  long  as  we  do  not  more  fully  und  :r- 
stand  the  conditions  necessary  for  the  production  of  physical  phenom- 
ena, the  door  must  be  left  open  for  the  alternative  of  this  unknown  rea- 
son. The  sequence  of  events  in  this  case  would  only  appear  to  show  a 
determination  to  leave  no  traces  of  contact. 

( 5 )  The  Society  is  aware  of  the  phenomena  of  so-called  "secondary 
personalities"  reported  by  eminent  medical  practitioners,  and  it  thinks 
that  the  hypothesis  of  spirit  helpers  and  spirit  possession  67  furnishes  a 
rational  explanation  of  the  facts  of  the  reproduction  of  the  subject's  for- 
gotten or  subconscious  experience. 

With  these  alternative  explanations  on  record,  the  Society  com- 
mends the  program  suggested  by  the  experimenter  for  its  next  series  of 
investigations  as  being  likely  to  throw  needed  light  upon  the  questions 
specifically  raised  in  this  report. 

Emma  L.  Hume,  Secretary, 

3968  Sacramento  Street, 
San  Francisco,  California. 


The  projected  experimentation  did  not  take  place  the  following 
year,  owing  partly  to  the  fact  that  the  psychic  was  not  in  her  usual 
health  and  partly  to  another  fact  which  may  have  contributed  to  the  first 
— the  opposition  of  certain  professionally  interested  friends  who  pro- 
fessed to  suspect  that  the  investigation  was  a  projected  expose  the  pub- 
lication of  which  was  intended  to  win  notoriety  or  laurels  for  the  ex- 
perimenter. The  psychic,  however,  had  occasion  to  realize  the  impor- 
tance of  the  work  in  hand  and  the  great  service  to  humanity  she  could 

66  Footnote  48,  p.  539,  supra. 

57  Did  not  the  noted  English  psychologist,  W.  M'Dougall  (The  case  of  Sally 
Beauchamp.  Proceedings  S.P.R.,  1905-7,  19:430),  consider  "Sally,"  whom  Prince 
(Dissociation  of  a  Personality)  suppressed  as  an  alternating  personality,  to  be  a 
possessing  spirit? 


INVESTIGATION    WITH   A   "TRUMPET"   MEDIUM  547 

render  in  cooperating  with  the  Society  in  carrying  out  the  proposed  pro- 
gram, for,  if  she  were  herself  in  doubt  on  account  of  some  of  the  unex- 
pected findings  of  the  preliminary  report,  she  was  given  reassurance  by 
the  highest  authority  on  psychical  research  in  America  in  the  following 
letter : 

THE   AMERICAN    INSTITUTE    FOR   SCIENTIFIC    RESEARCH 

SECTION     B 

AMERICAN    SOCIETY    FOR     PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH 

NEW    YORK 

519   WEST  149th   STREET 

November  22d,  1914. 
Dear  'Mrs.  Key' : 

I  have  just  read  and  sent  to  preBs  the  report  of  the  Cali- 
fornia Society  for  Psychical  Research  and  I  write  to  say  that  I 
have  been  much  interested  in  it  as  a  good  piece  of  work.  It  did 
not  result  in  as  positive  proof  as  the  experimenters  deBired  for 
spiritistic  agencies,  but  that  does  not  derogate  from  its 
scientific  character  and  I  shall  value  the  paper  very  much. 
The  evidence  that  your  organism  was  affected  in  the  phenomena 
observed  does  not  in  the  least  militate  against  spiritistic  in- 
fluences. It  only  limits  the  evidence  for  such  influences.  I 
myBelf  have  held  and  taught  for  years  that  the  organism  and  sub- 
consciousness of  the  medium  is  bound  to  modify  the  results  and 
to  be  a  coloring  factor  in  the  genuine  as  well  as  in  other  phe- 
nomena. In  all  my  work  I  have  large  amounts  of  non-evidential 
incidents  and  statements  as  well  as  muscular  movements  that  the 
skeptic  can  refer  to  subconscious  action.  That  is  an  inevitable 
event  in  the  work  and  it  will  not  help  the  spiritistic  interpre- 
tation to  deny  it.  I  have  seen  many  cases  in  which  the  phenomena 
of  the  subject  were  worthless  as  evidence,  but  the  moment  I  took 
the  subject  to  another  psychic  and  had  the  necessary  cross- 
references  it  completely  altered  the  case.   What  we  had  to  treat 
as  subconscious  in  the  subject,  without  this  confirmation,  be- 
came evidential  when  obtained  through  another  psychic.  Witness 
the  cases,  Thompson-Gifford,  DeCamp-Stockton  and  Rogers-Abbott. 
In  each  taken  alone  I  did  not  have  the  evidence  that  the  alleged 
person  was  present  and  influencing  the  subject's  experiences, 
but  the  moment  I  got  the  same  facts  through  another  psychic  who 
knew  nothing  of  them,  the  spiritistic  theory  became  as  legiti- 
mate as  any  other.  It  is  the  same  with  actions  that  are  not 
evidential.  I  have  just  completed  a  series  of  experiments  where 
this  is  true.  We  have  to  assume  that  the  organism  and  subcon- 
sciousness of  the  medium  will  always  be  a  factor  in  the  genuine 
phenomena.   What  we  want  is  indubitable  evidence  and  later  we 
can  extend  the  explanatory  power  of  spiritistic  influences. 

Very  sincerely, 

(Signed)  James  H.  Hyslop. 


548  APPENDIX  D 

It  is  probable,  therefore,  that  the  responsibility  for  the  temporary 
interruption  in  the  investigation  rests  wholly  upon  the  shoulders  of  the 
psychic's  misguided  advisers,  who  at  one  time  charge  that  scientific  men 
will  pay  no  attention  to  the  phenomena  of  spiritualism  and  at  another 
when  a  most  favorable  opportunity  is  offered  strongly  oppose  the  scien- 
tific study  of  the  phenomena,  and  who  seem  to  have  had  less  faith  in  the 
scientific  verification  of  the  phenomena  than  had  the  principal  members 
of  the  investigation  committee  who  bravely  and  stoutly  supported  the 
program. 

The  Society,  consequently,  has  had  to  confine  its  attention  to  the 
investigation  of  such  subordinate  phenomena  as  are  presented  from  time 
to  time,  hopefully  awaiting  an  opportunity  to  carry  out  its  complete 
program. 

This  opportunity  may  reasonably  be  expected  to  present  itself  soon, 
for  the  longer  it  is  voluntarily  delayed  by  those  who  can  produce  the 
phenomena,  the  stronger  will  the  presumption  grow  that  commercially 
interested  psychics  are  willing  to  have  their  spiritualistic  clientele  believe 
in  phenomena  that  they  themselves  fear  to  have  properly  inspected.  And 
even  were  a  sort  of  mediums'  protective  association  to  make  it  a  com- 
mon cause  to  withhold  the  awaited  opportunity  the  presumption  would 
apply  so  particularly  to  the  leaders  of  that  organization  that  the  more 
prominent  spiritualists,  men  of  influence  and  property,  who  support  the 
program  and  regret  the  delay,  would  no  doubt  find  a  way  of  overcoming 
the  opposition. 

Two  important  factors  in  the  present  situation  which  should  appeal 
favorably  to  psychics  may  be  pointed  out : 

( i )  At  the  beginning  of  its  existence  the  Society  was  unknown 
and,  although  men  of  prominence  in  both  science  and  business  were 
connected  with  it,  was  not  in  a  position  to  confer  honor  through  cooper- 
ation upon  a  prominent  psychic.  The  hope  of  the  Society  for  authorita- 
tive recognition  was  fulfilled  upon  the  publication  of  its  preliminary 
report :  It  is  now  recognized  by  the  American  Society  for  Psychical  Re- 
search as  an  independent  affiliated  society  whose  reports  of  scientific 
work  are  acceptable  for  publication  in  the  American  Proceedings.  The 
honor  of  cooperating  with  a  society  of  recognized  scientific  standing 
awaits  the  psychic  who  places  herself  at  the  disposal  of  the  California 
Psychical  Research  Society. 

(2)  The  program  of  the  Society  has  been  approved,  with  and  with- 
out qualification,  by  authorities  in  psychical  research  at  home  and  abroad. 


INVESTIGATION   WITH  A  "TRUMPET"   MEDIUM  549 

In  correspondence  with  the  experimenter,  consequent  upon  the  publica- 
tion of  the  Society's  Report,  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  says: 

Reflex  or  sympathetic  actions  on  the  part  of  Eusapia's  organization  were  a 
frequent  experience  at  times  when  the  control  was  quite  perfect.  In  so  far  as 
"physical  phenomena"  are  extensions  of  physiological  processes  this  is  only  natural, 
though  manifestly  it  may  be  regarded  as  suspicious.  Every  kind  of  suspicion  was 
felt  and  guarded  against:  indeed,  that  was  the  object  of  the  sitters.  But  I  quite 
agree  that  physiological  experiments  and  apparatus  ought  to  be  used  in  a  judicious 
manner  at  the  appropriate  time,  and  that  the  results  so  obtained  may  ultimately  be 
instructive. 

Dr.  James  H.  Hyslop  wrote: 

Your  methods  of  experiment  I  thoroughly  agree  with.  I  should  have  em- 
ployed similar  ones  if  I  had  had  the  laboratory  and  apparatus,  but  I  have  not  had 
them  and  I  have  had  to  confine  my  work  to  what  could  be  done  without  apparatus. 

For  unifying  the  world  the  laboratory  method  is  indispensable.  I  wish  we  had 
a  laboratory  for  the  work  in  that  direction. 

Mr.  Hereward  Carrington  of  New  York,  wrote : 

As  to  the  Report :  I  think  it  is  very  excellent  in  the  main,  and  is  exactly  the 
sort  of  thing  I  had  hoped  to  do,  if  we  get  our  laboratory  here  going.  I  think 
you've  done  a  good  piece  of  work,  and  one  which  ought  to  please  and  interest  the 
scientific  man.  [From  reported  evidence  apart  from  the  laboratory  experiments] 
I  am  even  yet  inclined  to  believe  .  .  .  that  she  [the  psychic]  has  produced  some 
genuine  manifestations.  At  the  same  time,  I  think  your  Report  is  impressive.  If 
she  is  willing  to  continue  giving  her  services  .  .  .  this  is  surely  a  good  sign  of  her 
conscious  honesty,  at  least,  which  you  seem  to  accept. 

The  main  problem  [is]  ...  whether  the  physical  phenomena  were 
produced  supernormally  or  no.  .  .  .  Your  program  sounds  good,  and  I  only  hope 
you  can  follow  it  out. 

The  importance  of  the  relation  of  the  "seance  personalities"  to  the 
psychic's  mind  is  recognized  everywhere  in  psychical  research,  and  the 
part  of  the  program  which  provides  for  the  development  of  a  sure  meth- 
od of  proving  the  independence  of  the  "seance  personality,"  has  received 
hearty  indorsement. 

Under  these  conditions  it  is  unlikely  that  any  group  of  interested 
persons  would  risk  for  long  a  concerted  action  to  prevent  the  carrying 
out  of  the  Society's  program, — an  effort  patently  calculated  to  defeat  the 
purposes  and  blast  the  hope  of  all  those  who  are  endeavoring  to  place 
the  phenomena  of  spiritualism  upon  a  basis  as  firm  as  the  facts  of  sci- 
ence, and  equally  calculated  to  block  the  distinterested  pursuit  of  truth. 


APPENDIX  E. 

CATALOGUE  OF  LITERATURE  IN  THE  LIBRARY  OF 

LELAND  STANFORD  JUNIOR  UNIVERSITY 

RELATING  DIRECTLY  OR  INDIRECTLY 

TO  PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH. 


BOOKS. 
(The   books   indicated   by   an   asterisk    (*)    were   purchased   upon   a   special   fund 
which  has  been  supplied,  from  year  to  year,  by  Mr.  Thomas  Welton  Stanford,  of 

Melbourne,  Australia.) 

Abbott,  David  Phelps :     Behind  the  scenes  with  mediums.     2d  ed.      Chicago,  1908. 

The  marvellous  creations  of  Joseffy.  Chicago,  1908.* 

Abbott,  Edwin  A:     Philomythus;    an  antidote  adjunct  credulity.     2d  ed. 

London,  1891. 

Abbott.  G.  F. :  Macedonian  folk-lore ;  appendices  in  modern  Greek :  last  chapter 
in  modern  Greek  with  English  translation  on  opposite  page. 

Cambridge,  1903. 

Abott,  Orrin :     The  Davenport  brothers ;    their  history,  travels,  and  manifestations. 

New    York,    1864.* 

Abelson,  J. :     Jewish  mysticism.  London,  1913.* 

Aber,  Mrs.  Mary  Rose  Ailing:     Souls.  Chicago,  1893. 

Abercrombie,  John :  Inquiries  concerning  the  intellectual  powers  and  the  investi- 
gation of  truth ;  with  additions  and  explanations  to  adapt  the  work  to  the 
use  of  schools  and  academies.  Boston,   1844. 

Abhedananda,  Swami :     Vedanta  philosophy ;    how  to  be  a  Yogi.     New  York,  1902. 

Vedanta  philosophy ;   three  lectures  on  reincarnation.  New  York,  1899. 

Vedanta  philosophy;    three  lectures  on  spiritual  unfoldment. 

New  York,  1901. 

Abraham,  Karl :    Traum  und  Mythus.  Leipzig,  1909. 

Abrams,  Albert :     Man  and  his  poisons.  New  York,  1906. 

Abu  Bakr  ibn  al-Tufail,  Abu  Jafar,  al-Ishbili :  The  improvement  of  human 
reason.  London,  1708* 

Academie  des  Sciences,  Paris:  Report  of  the  experiments  on  animal  magnetism 
made  by  a  committee  of  the  Medical  section  of  the  French  Royal  Academy 
of  Sciences;    read  at  the  meetings  of  the  21st  and  28th  of  June,  1831. 

Edinburgh,   1833.* 

Acevedo,  M.  Otero.     (See  Otero.) 

Adams  John  S  :  Review  of  the  conclusion  of  Rev.  Charles  Beecher,  referring 
the  manifestations  of  the  present  time  to  the  agency  of  evil  spirits. 

New  York,  1853* 

Adams,  William    Henry    Davenport:     Witch,    warlock,    and    magician;     historical 
sketches  of  magic  and  witchcraft  in  England  and  Scotland.      London,  1889.* 
Adelung,  Johann   Christoph :     Geschichte   der  menschlichen   Narrheit.     4  vols. 

Leipzig,  1785-1787.* 

An  adventure;    with  appendix  and  maps.  London,  1913* 

SSI 


552  APPENDIX  E 

Agrippa  von  Nettesheim,  Heinrich  Cornelius :     De  incertitudine  et  vanitate  omnium 

scientarium.  Frankfurt,   1863. 

De  occulta  philosophia ;    libri  tres.  Coloniae,  1533. 


Aguirre  de  Venero,  Mariano :     A  new  system  of  physiognomy.     New  York,  1865.* 
Airy,  George   Biddell :     On  the  algebraical  and  numerical  theory  of  errors  of  ob- 
servations. London,   1861. 
Aksakov,    Aleksandr    Nikolaevich :     Animisme    et    spiritisme.  Paris,    1895.* 

Vorlaufer  des  Spiritismus.  Leipzig,  1898.* 

Alber,   Z. :     De   l'illusion ;    son   mecanisme   psycho-social.  Paris,    1909.* 

Albertus    de    Saxonia :     Questiones    subtilissime    Alberti   de    Saxonia    in    libros   de 

celo   et   mundo.  Venetys,    1520.* 

Albinus,  Theophilus   (Pseud.).     (See  Weise,  J.  M.) 

Alden,  Henry  Mills :     A  study  of  death.  New  York,   1895. 

Alderson,  John  :     On  apparitions.  Hull,   18 — .* 

Alexandre-Bisson,  Juliette :     Les  phenomenes  dits  de  materialisation.     Paris,  1914.* 
Alger,   William   R. :     A   critical   history   of  the  doctrine   of  a   future  life;    with  a 

complete   bibliography  of  the   subject.  Philadelphia,    1864. 

Almanach    prophetique,    pittoresque,    et   utile.  Paris,    1856.* 

Ames,  Edward  Scribner :     The  psychology  of  religious  experience.       Boston,   1910. 
Amryce,  C. :     Pantheism,  the  light  and  hope  of  modern  reason.  1898. 

Anderson,  J.  H. :     Professor  Anderson's  expose  of  spirit  rappings. 

New  York,   1853.* 
Andree,   Richard :     Die  Flutsagen.  Braunschweig,    1891. 

Andrews,   James    Bruyn    (Ed.)  :     Contes   ligures,   traditions   de   la   Riviere. 

Paris,   1892. 
Anglemont,  Arthur,  Comte  de :     El  hipnotismo,  el  magnetismo  y  la  mediumnidad 

scientificamente  demostrados.  Barcelona,   1895. 

Anhorn  von  Hartwiss,  Bartholomaeus :     Magiologia.  Basel,   1674. 

Antiquity  unveiled.     (See  Roberts,  J.  M.)  Philadelphia,   1892. 

Armstrong,  P.  A. :    The  Piasa :   or,  the  devil  among  the  Indians.     Morris,  111.,  1887. 
Arnold,    Sir    Edwin:     Death— and    afterwards.      (Reprinted    from   the   Fortnightly 

Review.)     15th  ed.  London,   1907.* 

Asbjornsen,  Peter  Christian  and  Moe,  Jorgen :     Norske  Folke-Eventyr. 

Christiania,  1866. 
Ash,   Edwin   Lancelot :     Mind   and   health ;     the   mental    factor   and   suggestion    in 

treatment,  with  special  reference  to  neurasthenia  and  other  common  nervous 

disorders.  New  York,  1910. 

Ashburner,  John :     Notes  and  studies  in  the  philosophy  of  animal  magnetism  and 

spiritualism.  London,   1867.* 

The  Athenian  Oracle ;    being  an  entire  collection  of  all  the  valuable  questions  and 

answers  in  the  old  Athenian  mercuries.  London,  1703.* 

Athius,  G.  (Pseud.).     (See  Azzi,  Gaetano.) 
Atkinson,  Henry  George  and  Martineau,  Harriet :     Letters  on  the  laws  of  man's 

nature  and  development.  Boston,  1851.* 

Aubrey,  John :     Miscellanies  upon  various  subjects.  London,  1857.* 

Augier,  Adolphe  Clovis  :     Les  grandes  victimes  de  l'hysterie.  Paris,  1907  * 

Aussfiihrlicher   Bericht   von    der    Newen    Propheten.  .  .  .  gestellet   durch    das   pre- 

digampt   der   Christlichen   Gemein   zu   Liibeck,   Hamburg,   und   Liineburg. 

Liibeck,  1634. 
Ave-Lallemant,    Friedrich    Christian:     Der    Magnetismus    mit    seinen    mystischen 

Verirrungen.  Leipzig,   1881.* 


BOOKS    IN    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    LIBRARY  553 

Aveling,  Francis :     On  the  consciousness  of  the  universal   and  the  individual. 

London,  1912. 

Axtell,    Harold   L. :    The   deification   of   abstract    ideas   in   Roman   literature    and 

inscriptions.  Chicago,  1907. 

Azam,  Eugene :     Hypnotisme ;    double  conscience  et  alterations  de  la  personnalite. 

Paris,   1887. 

Azzi,  Gaetano :  Idea  vera  dello  spiritismo ;  nozioni  preliminari  alio  studio  della 
dottrina  spiritica  ed  alia  conoscenza  del  mondo  invisibile,  ricavate  dai  mi- 
gliori  trattati  di  psicologia  e  di  filosofia  spiritualista,  per  cura  di  G.  Athius 
(Pseud.).  Torino,   1895.* 

In  difesa  della  spiritismo ;     riposte  agli  .  .  .  membri  della  societa  scientirico 

letteraria  "Secolo  Nuovo"  di  Genova  che  .  .  .  proclamarono  superstizione  ed 
aberrazione  lo  spiritismo,  raccolte  e  pubblicate  per  cura  di  Gaetano  Azzi. 

Alba,  19— (?).* 

Babbitt,  Edwin  Dwight :     Religion  as  revealed  by  the  material  and  spiritual  uni- 
verse. New  York,  1881.* 
Bahnsch,  Friedrich :     Tristan-Studien.  Danzig,  1885. 
Bain.  Alexander :     Mind  and  body ;   the  theories  of  their  relation.    New  York,  1892. 

On  the  study  of  character,  including  an  estimate  of  phrenology. 

London,   1861.* 

Bajenoff:     La  suggestion  et  ses  limites,  par  le  professeur  Bajenoff,  et  le  docteur 

OssipofF.  Paris,   191 1. 

Ballet,  Gilbert :     Le  language  interieur  et  les  diverses  formes  de  l'asphasie. 

Paris,   1888. 

Traite  de  pathologie  mentale.  Paris,  1903. 

Baraduc,   Hippolyte :     Les  vibrations  de  la  vitalite  humaine.  Paris,   1904.* 

Baragnon,  Pierre  Paul :     fetude  du  magnetisme  animal.  Paris,  1853.* 

Barety,  A. :     Magnetisme  animal,  etudie  sous  le  nom  de  force  rayonnante. 

Paris,   1887.* 
Baring-Gould,  Sabine:     Curious  myths  of  the  middle  ages.  Boston,  1889. 

Origin  and  development  of  religious  belief.  London,  1878. 

Barkas,  Thomas  P. :     Outlines  of  ten  years'  investigations  into  the  phenomena  of 
modern  spiritualism.  London,  1862.* 

Barker,  Elsa :     Letters  from  a  living  dead  man,  written  down  by  Elsa  Barker. 

London,  1914.* 
Barr,  Martin  W. :     Mental  defectives,  their  history,  treatment,  and  training. 

Philadelphia,   1904. 
Barrett,  William  Fletcher:     Psychical  research.  London,  191 1.* 

Swedenborg.  London,  1912.* 

Barth,  Henri :     Du  sommeil  non  naturel.  Paris,  1886.* 

Bartholomaeus,  Angelicus :     Mediaeval  lore.     Edited  by  R.  Steele.       London,  1893. 
Barzini,  Luigi :     Nel  mondo  dei  misteri  con  Euspasa   Paladino  preceduto  da  uno 

studio  di  C.  Lombroso.  Milano,  1907.* 

Bassett,  Rene  (Trans.)  :     Contes  populaires  berberes.  Paris,  1887. 

Bastian,    Adolf    Philipp    Wilhelm :      Vorgeschichtliche    Schopfungslieder    in    ihren 

ethnischen  Elementargedanken.  Berlin,   1893. 

Zur  naturwissenschaftlichen  Behandlungsweise  der  Psychologie  durch  und 

fur  die  Volkerkunde.  Berlin,  1883. 

Bastian,  Henry  C. :     The  brain  as  an  organ  of  mind.  New  York,  1896. 

Bates,  Emily  Katharine  :     Psychical  science  and  Christianity.  London,  1909.* 

Baudi  di  Vesme,  Cesare :     Geschichte  des  Spiritismus.     Obersetzung  von  Feilgen- 

hauer.  Leipzig,  1898.* 


554  APPENDIX  E 

Baudi  di  Vesme,  Cesare:  Storia  dello  spiritismo.  Torino.  1896.* 
Bawdcn,  Henry  Heath  :  A  study  of  lapses.  New  York,  1900. 
Baxter,  Robert :  Narrative  of  facts,  characterizing  the  supernatural  manifesta- 
tions in  members  of  Mr.  Irving's  congregation.  London,  1833. 
Beaumont,  Sir  John :  Gleanings  of  antiquities.  London,  1724.* 
Beaunis,  Henri  fitienne :  Recherches  experimentales  sur  les  conditions  de  l'acti- 
vite  cerebrale.  Paris,  1884.* 

Le    somnambulisme   provoque.  Paris,    1887.* 

Bebel,  Heinrich :     Proverbia  germanica.  Leiden,   1879. 
Bechstein,  Ludwig:     Die  Sagen  des  Rhongebirges  und  des  Grabfeldes. 

Wiirzburg,  1842. 

Bechterev,  Vladimir  Michajlovic:     La  suggestion  et  son  role  dans  la  vie  sociale. 

Tr.  par  P.  Keraval.  Paris,   1910. 

Becker,  Walther :     Okkultismus  und  Wissenschaft.  Buenos  Aires,  1900. 

Beecher,  Charles:     A  review  of  the  "spiritual  manifestations."       New  York,  1853.* 

Beers,  Clifford  Whittingham :     A  mind  that  found  itself.  New  York,  1913. 

Begbie,  Peter  James:     Supernatural  illusions.     2  vols,  in  1.  London,  1851.* 

Beighle,  Mrs.  Helen  Craib :  J.  J.  Owen,  "Our  little  doctor,"  Helen  Craib,  and 
the  magic  power  of  her  electric  hand.  San  Francisco,  1893. 

Belden,  L.   W. :     An  account  of  Jane  C.   Rider,  the   Springfield  somnambulist. 

Springfield,  1834* 

Bell,  Clark  :  Spiritism,  hypnotism,  and  telepathy,  as  involved  in  the  case  of  Mrs. 
Leonora  E.  Piper,  and  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research  .  .  .  and  the  dis- 
cussion thereon  by  Thomas  Jay  Hudson,  LL.  D.,  and  more  than  twenty 
observers.  New  York,  1904* 

Bell,  John  :  The  general  and  particular  principles  of  animal  electricity  and  mag- 
netism. London,   1792.* 

Bennett,  Edward  T. :     Automatic  speaking  and  writing ;    a  study.       London,  1905.* 

■ Psychic  phenomena ;  a  brief  account  of  the  physical  manifestations  ob- 
served in  psychical  research,  with  fac-simile  illustrations  of  the  drawings 
and  automatic  writing  by  B.     Foreword  by  Sir  Oliver  Lodge. 

New  York,  1909* 

The  Society  for  Psychical  Research ;    its  rise,  progress,  and  a  sketch  of  its 

work,  with  facsimile  illustrations  of  three  pairs  of  the  thought-transference 
drawings.  London,  1903.* 

Twenty  years  of  psychical  research.  London,  1904* 

Benussi,   Vittorio :     Psychologie  der  Zeitauffassung.  Heidelberg,   1913. 

Berenger-Feraud,   Laurent   Jean   Baptiste :     Superstitions  et   survivances. 

Paris,   1896. 
Berg,  Joseph   Frederick :     Abaddon  and   Mahamaim ;    or,   Daemons   and   guardian 
angels.  Philadelphia,  1856. 

Bergasse,   Nicolas:     Considerations  sur  le   magnetisme  animal.       La  Haye,   1784.* 
Bergen,  Mrs.   Fanny  Dickerson :     Current  superstitions.  Boston,   1894.* 

Bergson,  Henri  Louis :     Dreams.  New  York,  1914. 

Essai  sur  les  donnees  immediates  de  la  conscience.  Paris,   1908. 

Berillon,  Edgar :     L'hypnotisme  et  l'orthopedie  mentale.  Paris,   1898.* 

Hypnotisme  experimental.  Paris,  1884.* 

Bernheim,  Fernand :     De  l'asphasie  motrice.  Paris,  1901. 

De  la  suggestion  dans  l'etat  hypnotique ;    reponse  a  M.   Paul  Janet. 

Paris,   1884.* 
Bernheim,    Hippolyte :     Hypnotisme,    suggestion,    psychotherapie ;     avec    considera- 
tions nouvelles  sur  I'hysterie.  Paris,  1903.* 


BOOKS    IN    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    LIBRARY  555 

Bernheim,  Hippolyte:     Suggestive  therapeutics.  New  York,  1889. 

Bernoulli,  Daniel :     Die  Grundlage  der  modernen  Wertlehre ;  Versuch  einer  neuen 

Theorie  der  Wertbestimmung  von  Gliicksfallen.  Leipzig,  1896. 

Bernstein,  Julius  :     The  five  senses  of  man.  New  York,  1890. 

Berry,  Mrs.  Catherine:  Experiences  in  spiritualism.  London,  1876.* 
Bertrand,  Alexandre  Jacques  Francois :     Du  magnetisme  animal  en  France  et  des 

jugements  qu'en  ont  portes  les  societes  savantes.  Paris,  1826* 

Traite  du  somnambulisme.  Paris,  1823.* 

Bertrand,  Alexis:     L'aperception  du  corps  humain  par  la  conscience.     Paris,  1880.* 

Bertrand,  Joseph   Louis  Francois :     Calcul  des  probabilites.  Paris,   1889. 

Besant,     Mrs.  Annie :     The  ancient  wisdom.  London,  1897. 

Birth  and  evolution  of  the  soul.  London,  1903. 

Esoteric  Christianity,  or,  the  lesser  mysteries.  New  York,  1902. 

The  evolution  of  life  and  form.  London,  1900 

The  riddle  of  life  and  how  theosophy  answers  it.  London,  191 1. 

Thought  power ;    its  control  and  culture.  London,  1904. 

Bianchi,  Leonardo :    A  text-book  of  psychiatry  for  physicians  and  surgeons. 

New  York,   1906. 

Bibliotheca  diabolica ;  in  two  parts,  pro  and  con ;  choice  selection  of  the  most 
valuable  books  relating  to  the  devil.  New  York,  1874. 

Bigelow,  John :     The  mystery  of  sleep.    Rewritten  and  enlarged.    New  York,  1905* 

Billington,  L.  W. :     Review  of  A.  J.  Davis's  Revelations.  Rochester,  1848. 

Billot,  G.  P.:  Recherches  psychologiques  sur  la  cause  des  phenomenes  extra- 
ordinaires  observes  chez  les  modernes  voyans.    2  vols.  Paris,  1839.* 

Binder,  Rudolph  Michael:  Feeling  as  the  principle  of  individuation  and  socializa- 
tion. New  York,  1903. 

Binet,  Alfred  :     Alterations  of  personality.  New  York,  1896. 

L'ame  et  le  corps.  Paris,  1906. 

On   double  consciousness ;    experimental  psychological   studies. 

Chicago,   1896. 

■     La  psychologie  du  raisonnement ;    recherches  experimentales  par  l'hypno- 

tisme. 

The  psychology  of  reasoning.     Tr.  by  A. 

La  suggestibilite. 

and  Fere,  Charles :     Animal  magnetism. 

Binswanger,  O. :  Die  Hysteric 
Binz,  Carl :  Ueber  den  Traum. 
Birlinger,   Anton    (Ed.):     Aus   Schwaben ;     Sagen, 

Volksthiimliches  aus  Schwaben. 

Worterbuchlein  zum  Volksthumlichen  aus 

Bishop,   Washington    Irving:     Second   sight   explained.     A  complete   exposition  of 

clairvoyance  or  second  sight,  as  exhibited  by  the   late  Robert   Houdin  and 
Robert    Heller,    showing   how   the    supposed    phenomena    may   be    produced. 

Edinburgh,   1880.* 
Bitot,  fimile  :     L'hysterie  male  dans  le  service  de  M.  le  professeur  Pitres  a  l'hopi- 
tal  Saint-Andre  de  Bordeaux.  Paris,   1890.* 

Bjornson,  Bjornstjerne :     Wise-Knut.     From  the  Norwegian  by  Bernard  Stahl. 

New  York,  1909.* 

Bjornstrom,  Fredrik  Johan :  Hypnotism;  its  history  and  present  development. 
Authorized   translation   from  the  2d   Swedish  edition  by   Baron   Nils   Posse. 

New  York,  1889. 


Paris,  1911.* 

G.  White. 

Chicago,   1899. 

Paris,  1900. 

New  York,  1892. 

Wein,  1904. 

Bonn,   1878* 

Legenden, 

Aberglauben. 

Wiesbaden,  1874. 

Freiburg,    1861. 

Schwaben. 

Freiburg,  1862. 

556  APPENDIX  E 

Blackwell,  Antoinette  Brown :  Philosophy  of  individuality ;  or,  the  one  and  the 
many.  New  York,  1893. 

Physical  basis  of  immortality.  New  York,  1876. 

Blair,  Mrs.:     Dreams  and  dreaming.  London,   1843(F)* 

Blakeman,   Rufus :     A   philosophical  essay   on  credulity  and   superstition. 

New  York,  1849.* 

Bland,  T.  A. :     In  the  world  celestial.  Chicago,  1902. 

Blaschke,   Ernst :     Vorlesungen  fiber  mathematische   Statistik.  Leipzig,   1906. 

Blavatsky,  Helene  Petrovna :     Isis  unveiled.    2  vols.  New  York,  1886.* 

Bleek,  Wilhelm  Heinrich  Immanuel,  and  Lloyd,  Lucy  C. :  Specimens  of  Bush- 
man Folklore.  London,   191 1. 

Bleuler,  Eugen  :     Die  Psychanalyse  Freud's.  Leipzig,  191 1. 

Blewett,  George  John :  The  Christian  view  of  the  world ;  N.  W.  Taylor  lectures 
for  1910-11  before  the  Divinity  School,  Yale  University.       New  Haven,  1912. 

Blondlot,  Rene :     "N"  Rays.     Tr.  by  J.  Garcin.  New  York,  1905. 

Boas,  Franz  :     The  measurment  of  variable  quantities.  New  York,  1906. 

Bodin,  Jean:     De  la  demonomanie  des  sorciers.  Anvers,  1593.* 

Bodisco,  Constantin  Alexandrovitch :  Recherches  psychiques  (1888-1S92)  dediees 
aux  incredules  et  aux  egoistes ;  traits  de  lumiere ;  preuves  materielles  de 
l'existence  de  la  vie  future ;  spiritisme  experimental  au  point  de  vue  scien- 
tifique.     Ouvrage  orne  de  3  planches  hors  texte.     Preface  de   Papus. 

Paris,   1892.* 

Bockel,   Otto :     Die   deutsche   Volkssage.  Leipzig,    1909. 

Bohme,  Jakob :  Theosophia  revelata ;  das  ist,  Alle  gottliche  Schriften  des  .  .  . 
deutschen  theosophi   Jacob   Bohmens.  .  .  .  Hamburg,   1715.* 

Bohn,   Erich :     Der   Fall  Rothe ;    eine   criminal-psychologische   Untersuchung. 

Breslau,   1901.* 

Bohn,  Henry  George :  A  hand-book  of  proverbs,  comprising  Ray's  collection  of 
English  proverbs ;    with   additions   from  foreign  languages.       London,   1888. 

Boirac,   fimile :     La  psychologie  inconnue.  Paris,   1912.* 

Bois,  Jules :  L'au  dela  et  les  forces  inconnues ;  opinion  de  l'elite  sur  le  mystere. 
7th  ed.  Paris,   1902  (?)* 

Le  miracle  moderne.  Paris,   1907.* 

■     Le  monde  invisible.  Paris,   1902.* 

Boismont,  A.  B.  de.     (See  Brierre  de  Boismont.) 

Bolton,  Gambier  Robert:     Ghosts  in  solid  form.  London,  1914.* 

Bolton,  Henry  Carrington :     The  revival  of  alchemy.     (In  Smithsonian   Institution 

Annual  Report  1897.)  Washington,  1898. 

Bolton,  Joseph  Shaw :     The  brain  in  health  and  disease.  London,  1914.* 

Bonjean,  Albert:     .  .  .  L'hypnotisme ;    ses  rapports  avec  le  droit  et  la  therapeutique 

la  suggestion  mentale  .  .  .  Paris,  1890.* 

Bonnamy,  Michel :     La  raison  du  spiritisme.  Paris,  1868.* 

Bonnayme,  Dr.  Ernest :     La  force  psychique,  l'agent  magnetique  et  les  instruments 

servant  a  les  mesurer.  Paris,  1908.* 

Bonnet,    Geraud :     Precis    d'auto-suggestion   volontaire ;     education   pratique   de    la 

volonte.  Paris,  1911.* 

Bonnier,  Pierre :     L'action  directe  sur  les  centres  nerveux.  Paris,   1913. 

Boole,  Mrs.  Mary  Everest :     The  message  of  psychic  science  to  the  world. 

London,   1908.* 
Borel,  Emile  Felix  Edouard  Justin  :     Elements  de  la  theorie  des  probabilites. 

Paris,   1909. 


BOOKS    IN    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    LIBRARY  557 

Bormann,  W. :     Die  Nornen ;    Forschungen  iiber  Fernsehen  in  Raum  und  Zeit. 

Leipzig,    1909.* 

Bottey,  Fernand :  Le  "magnetisme  animal" ;  etude  critique  et  experimentale  sur 
l'hypnotisme.  Paris,    1884.* 

Bourru,  Henri  and  Burot,  Prosper  Ferdinand :     Variation  de  la  personnalite. 

Paris,  1888. 

Bouvery,  J. :     Le  spiritisme  et  l'anarchie  devant  la  science  et  la  philosophie. 

Paris,  1897.* 

Bowley,  Arthur  Lyon :     The  measurement  of  groups  and  series.          London,  1913. 

Bozzano,  Ernesto :     Dei  casi  d'identificazione  spiritica.  Genova,  1909.* 

■     Ipotesi  spiritica  e  teoriche  scientifiche.  Genova,  1903.* 

■     Des  phenomenes  premonitoires.  Paris,  1913.* 

Bracht,  Thielem  Jansz  von :    The  bloody  theatre ;   or,  Martyrs'  mirror. 

Lancaster,  1837.* 

Braga,  Joaquim  Theophilo  Fernandes :     Contos  tradicionaes  do  povo  portuguez. 

Porto,  1890. 

Braid,  James  :     Observations  on  trance.  London,  1850.* 

On  hypnotism,  neurypnology ;    or,  The  rationale  of  nervous  sleep. 

London,  1899.* 

The  physiology  of  fascination ;  and,  The  critics  criticized. 

Manchester,  1855.* 

The  power  of  the  mind  over  the  body.  London,  1846.* 

Bramwell,  John  Milne  :     Hypnotism,  its  history,  practice,  and  theory. 

London,  1906.* 

Bray,  Charles:     On  force,  and  its  mental  and  moral  correlates.  London,  1866. 

Brent,  Charles  Henry:     The  sixth  sense;  its  cultivation  and  use.     New  York,  1911. 

Breuer,  Josef  und  Freud,  Sigm. :     Studien  iiber  Hysteric  Leipzig,  1895. 

Brewer,  Ebenezer  Cobham :  Dictionary  of  miracles,  imitative,  realistic,  and  dog- 
matic London,  1884. 

Brewster,  Sir  David:     Letters  on  natural  magic.  London,  1883. 

Bridger,  Adolphus  Edward  :     Minds  in  distress.  London,  1913-* 

Bridgman,  Laura.     (See  Elliott,  Mrs.  Maude  Howe.) 

Brierre  de  Boismont,  Alexandre  Jacques  Francois :  Des  hallucinations ;  ou,  His- 
toire  raisonnee  des  apparitions,  des  visions,  des  songes,  de  l'extase,  des  reves, 
du  magnetisme  et  du  somnambulisme.  Paris,  1862. 

A  history  of  dreams,  visions,  apparitions,  etc.  Philadelphia,  1885.* 

Bright,  Mrs.  Annie :     What  life  in  the  spirit  world  really  is.  Melbourne,  1912.* 

Brill,  A.  A.:     Psychoanalysis.  Philadelphia,  1913. 

Brinton,  Daniel  Garrison:     Myths  of  the  new  world;  a  treatise  on  the  symbolism 

and  mythology  of  the  red  race  of  America.  Philadelphia,   1896. 

Brittan,  Samuel  Byron:  A  discussion  of  the  facts  and  philosophy  of  ancient  and 
modern  spiritualism.  New  York,  1853.* 

Man  and  his  relations ;  illustrating  the  influence  of  the  mind  on  the  body ; 

the  relations  of  the  faculties  to  the  organs,  and  to  the  elements,  objects,  and 
phenomena  of  the  external  world.  New  York,  1864.* 

A  review  of  Rev.  Charles  Beecher's  report  concerning  the  spiritual  man- 
ifestations. New  York,  1853.* 

Britten,  Emma  Hardinge :     Autobiography  of.     Ed.  by  Mrs.  M.  Wilkinson. 

London,   1900.* 

The  creed  of  the  spirits,  and  the  influence  of  the  religion  of  spiritualism. 

London,   1871.* 

Modern  American  spiritualism;  a  twenty-year  record  of  the  communica- 
tion between  earth  and  the  world  of  spirits.  New  York,  1870.* 


558  APPENDIX  E 

Britten,  Emma  Hardinge :  Nineteenth  century  miracles ;  or,  Spirits  and  their  work 
in  every  country  of  the  earth  ;  a  complete  historical  compendium  of  the  great 
movement  known  as  "modern  spiritualism."  Manchester,   1884.* 

On  the  spirit  circle  and  the  laws  of  mediumship.  London,  1871  (  ?)* 

—     Rules  to  be  observed  for  the  spirit  circle.  London,  i867(?)* 

Britten,   William :      Ghost   land ;    or,   Researches   into   the    mysteries   of   occultism. 

Tr.  and  ed.  by  Emma  Hardinge  Britten.  Boston,  1876.* 

Brofferio,  Angelo :  Per  lo  spiritismo.  Bound  with  this  is:  La  scienza  spirituale 
attraverso  i  secoli,  by  Virginia  Paganini.  Milano,  1893.* 

Broussais,  Francois  Joseph  Victor :  De  l'irritation  et  de  la  folie ;  ouvrage  dans 
lequel  les  rapports  du  physique  et  du  moral  sont  etablis  sur  les  bases  de  la 
medecine  physiologique.  Paris,  1828. 

Brown  :     Macht  der  Hypnose.  Leipzig,  1910.* 

Brown,  J.  H.:     Spectropia  ;  or,  Surpising  spectral  illusions;  showing  ghosts  every- 
where, and  of  any  colour.  London,  1864.* 
Browne,   Hugh  Junor :     The   grand   reality;   being  experiences   in   spirit   life   of  a 
celebrated  dramatist,  received  through  a  trance  medium  and  edited  by  Hugh 
Junor  Browne.                                                                                    Melbourne,  1888.* 

A  rational  faith.  Melbourne,  1892.* 

Browne,  Lucy  Lovina :  Prophetic  visions  of  national  events  and  spirit  communi- 
cations. Oakland,  Cal.,  1882* 

Bruce,  Henry  Addington  Bayley :     Adventurings  in  the  psychical.       Boston,   1914.* 

Historic  ghosts  and  ghost-hunters.  New  York,   1908.* 

The  riddle  of  personality.  New  York,  1915.* 

Scientific  mental  healing.  Boston,  191 1.* 

Sleep  and  Sleeplessness.  Boston,  1915. 

Bruns,  Ernst  Heinrich :     Warscheinlichkeitsrechnung  und  Kollektivmasslehre. 

Leipzig,   1906. 

Buchanan,   George   D. :     Biyonde   cifrun    (beyond   zero).  Boston,    1911. 

Buchanan,  Joseph  Rodes :  Outlines  of  lectures  on  the  neurological  system  of 
anthropology.  Cincinnati,   1854. 

Buckland,  Thomas:  The  hand-book  of  mesmerism,  for  the  guidance  and  in- 
struction of  all  persons  who  desire  to  practise  mesmerism  for  the  cure  of 
diseases,  and  to  alleviate  the  sufferings  of  their  fellow  creatures ;  to  which 
is  annexed,  the   rules  and   regulations  of  the  mesmeric   infirmary. 

London,   1850.* 

Buckley,  James  Monroe :     An  address  on  supposed  miracles.         New  York,  1875.* 

Buisseret,  F. :     La  possession  de  Jeanne  Fery  .  .  .   (1584).  Paris,  1886.* 

Burdin,  Charles :  Histoire  academique  du  magnetisme  animal,  accompagnee  de 
notes  et  de  remarques  critiques  sur  toutes  les  observations  et  experiences 
faites  jusqu'a  ce  jour;   par  C.  Burdin  jeune,  et  Fred.  Dubois.        Paris,  1841.* 

Burlingame,  Hardin  J.:  Hermann  the  Great;  the  famous  magician's  wonderful 
tricks.  Chicago,   1897.* 

Burnham,   Benjamin   Franklin:     Leading  in  law  and  curious  in  court. 

New  York,  1896.* 

Burr,  Colonel  Bell :  A  handbook  of  psychology  and  mental  disease,  for  use  in 
training-schools  for  attendants  and  nurses  and  in  medical  classes,  and  as  a 
ready  reference  for  the  practitioner.  Philadelphia,  1914* 

Burr,  George  Lincoln :     The  literature  of  witchcraft. 

Narratives  of  the  witchcraft  cases.  New  York,  1914. 

(Ed.)   The  witch  persecutions. 

Cabala ;  Kabbala  denudata.  Tr.  into  English  from  the  Latin  version  of  Knorr 
von  Rosenroth  by  S.  L.  MacGregor  Mathers.  New  York,  1912* 


BOOKS    IN    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    LIBRARY  559 

Cahagnet,  Louis  Alphonse :     Magnetisme  ...     3  vols.  Paris,  1848-54.* 

Caillet,  Albert  Louis :     Manuel  bibliographique  des  sciences  psychiques  ou  occultes. 

Paris,  1912.* 

Caithness,    Marie    (de   Mariategui)    Sinclair,    Countess   of:     A   midnight   visit   to 

Holyrood.  London,   1887.* 

Calderone,  Innocenzo :     II  problema  dell'  anima.  Palermo,  1908.* 

Calderwood,  Henry :     Relations  of  mind  and  brain.  London,   1884. 

Calmet,  Augustin :     Dissertations  sur  les  apparitions  des  anges,  des  demons  et  des 

esprits ;    Et  sur  les  revenans  et  vampires ;    De  Hongrie,  de  Boheme,  de  Mo- 

ravie,  et  de  Silesie.  Paris,  1746. 

The  phantom  world.     Ed.  by  H.  Christmas.  London,  1850.* 

Campbell,   John   Bunyan:     Pittsburgh   and   Allegheny   spirit-rappings. 

Allegheny,  1851.* 
Campbell,  John  Gregorson,    (comp.)  :     Superstition  of   the   highlands   and   islands 

of  Scotland.  Glasgow,  1900.* 

Capern,  Thomas:     The  mighty  curative  powers  of  mesmerism.  London,  1851* 

Capron,    Eliab    Wilkinson :     Modern    spiritualism ;     its    facts   and    fanaticisms,    its 

consistencies   and  contradictions ;    with  an  appendix.  Boston,    1855.* 

and    Barron,    H.    D. :     Singular    revelations;     explanation   and   history   of 

the  mysterious  communion  with  spirits,  comprehending  the  rise  and  progress 
of  the  mysterious  noises  in  western  New  York.  Auburn,  1850.* 

Cardano,  Girolamo :     Hieronymi  Cardani.  .  .  .  De  rerum  varietate  libri  xvii. 

Avinione,   1558.* 
Carlisle,  William :     An  essay  on  evil  spirits.  London,  1825.* 

Carnoy,   Henry :     Contes   f  rangais.  Paris,   1885. 

Carpenter,  William  Benjamin :     Mesmerism  and  spiritualism.  New  York,  1895. 

On  the  correlation  of  the  physical  and  vital  forces.  New  York,  1865. 

Principles  of  mental  physiology,  with  their  application  to  the  training  and 

discipline  of  the  mind.  New  York,  1883. 

The    spiritualism.      (In    Quarterly  Review.)  London,    Oct.    1871. 

Carpenter,  William  Boyd:     Life's  tangled  thread.  London,  1913. 

The  permanent  elements  of  religion.  London,  1894. 

Carrington,   Hereward :    The  coming  science.  Boston,   1908.* 

Death ;    its  causes  and  phenomena.  London,   1913.* 

Eusapia  Palladino  and  her  phenomena.  New  York,  1909.* 

Hindu  magic.  London,   1909.* 

Personal   experiences   in    spiritualism    (including   the   official   account    and 

record  of  the  American  Palladino  seances).  London,   1913.* 

The   physical   phenomena  of   spiritualism,   fraudulent   and   genuine ;    being 

a  brief  account  of  the  most  important  historical  phenomena,  a  criticism  of 
their  evidential  value,  and  a  complete  exposition  of  the  methods  employed 
in   fraudulently   reproducing   the   same.  Boston,    1008.* 

Carroll,  H.  K. :     Religious  forces  of  the  United  States.  New  York,  1893. 

Carus,  Paul:     History  of  the  devil  and  the  idea  of  evil.  Chicago,   1900. 

Cassell,  Paulus  Stephanus,  originally  Selig :    Der  Schwan  in  Sage  und  Leben. 

Berlin,  1872. 

Cauzons,  Th.  de:    La  magie  et  la  sorcellerie  en  France.  Paris,  191 1* 

Ceballos  Dosamantes,  Jesus:     Ciencia  y  religion  del  porvenir.  Mexico,   1897.* 

EI  dosmantismo  es  la  religion  cientifica.  Mexico,  1004.* 

El  perfeccionismo  absoluto.  Mexico.   1888. 


; 


560  APPENDIX  E 

Chabaneix,  Paul :  Physiologie  cerebrale.  Le  subconscient  chez  les  artistes,  les 
savants,  et  les  ecrivains.  Paris,  1897.* 

Chambard,  Ernest :  Du  somnambulisme  en  general ;  nature,  analogies,  significa- 
tion nosologique  et  etiologie.  Paris,   1881.* 

Chandler,   P.  A. :     Witch  trials  in   Massachusetts.  1884. 

Chapignon,  Louis  Joseph  Jules :  Physiologie,  medecine  et  metaphysique  du  mag- 
netisme.  Paris,   1848.* 

Charcot,  Jean  Martin:     Legons  du  Mardi  a  la  Salpetriere.     2  vols.  1887-1889. 

Lectures  on  the  diseases  of  the  nervous  system.    3  vols.      London,  1877-89. 

Oeuvres  completes.     4  vols.  Paris,   1890-94. 

Charzarain,  L.  Th.  and  Decle,  Ch. :     Les  courants  de  la  polarite  dans  l'aimant  et 

dans  le  corps  humain.  Paris,   1887.* 

Chatelain,  Heli :     Folk-Tales  of  Angola.  Boston,   1894. 

Chauvenet,  William :     Treatise  on  the  method  of  least  squares.     Philadelphia,  1888. 

Chester.   William :     Immortality  a   rational   faith.  Chicago,    1903. 

Chevreul.  M.  E. :  De  la  baguette  divinatoire,  du  pendule  dit  explorateur  et  des 
tables  tournantes,  au  point  de  vue   de  l'histoire.  Paris,   1854.* 

Child,  Henry  T. :  Narrative  of  the  spirits  of  Sir  Henry  Morgan,  and  his  daugh- 
ter Annie,  usually  known  as  John  and  Katie  King.  Philadelphia,  1874.* 

Chiromantia ;  physionomia,  ex  aspectu  membrorum  hominis ;  periaxiomata  de 
faciebus  signorum ;  canones  astrologici,  de  judiciis  aegritudinum ;  astro- 
logia   naturalis ;    complexionum  notitia,   iuxta   dominum  planetarum.        1546. 

Christian,  John  :     Behar  proverbs.  London,  1891.* 

Christian  Science  publishing  society.  Editorial  comments  on  the  life  and  work 
of  Mary  Baker  Eddy.  Boston,   1911. 

Christy,  Robert :     Proverbs,  maxims,  and  phrases  of  all  ages.  New  York,  1890. 

Church,  Alfred  John :  Stories  of  the  magicians ;  Thalaba  and  the  magicians  of 
the   Domdaniel ;    Rustem  and  the   fenii ;    Kehama  and  his   sorceries. 

London,   1887.* 

Church,  Archibald,  and  Peterson,  Frederick :  Nervous  and  mental  diseases. 
6th  ed.  Philadelphia,   1908. 

Cicero,    Marcus    Tullius :     Paradoxa    stoicorum.  .  .  .  De    divinatione.      2    vols. 

Lipsiae,  1908-1911. 

Clark,  E.  H.:     Visions,  a  study  of  false  sight.  Boston,  1878. 

Clark,  Uriah  :     Plain  guide  to  spiritualism.  Boston,  1863.* 

Clarke,  James  Freeman:     Ten  great  religions.  Boston,  1871. 

Clemens,  Samuel   (Mark  Twain)  :     Christian  Science.  New  York,  1907. 

Clerical  and  medical  committee  of  inquiry  into  spiritual,  faith,  and  mental  heal- 
ings:   Report.  London,   1914. 

Clifford,  William  Kingdon:     Body  and  mind.  New  York,  1891. 

The  common  sense  of  the  exact  sciences.  New  York,  1885. 

Clouston,  Sir  Thomas  Smith:    The  hygiene  of  mind.    6th  edit.  London,  1912. 

Coates,   James:     Has   W.   T.   Stead   returned?  London,    1913. 

Photographing  the  invisible.  London,   1911.* 

Seeing  the  invisible.  London,   1909.* 

Cobbe,  Frances  Power:     The  peak  in  Darien.     (Clairvoyance  of  the  dying). 

London,   1882.* 

Coelho,   Francisco   Adolpho:     Contos   populares   portuguezes.  Lisbon,    1879 

Coelho  de  Senna,  Nelson:     Contos  sertanejos  (lendas  e  fragmentos).    Brazil,  1902. 


BOOKS    IN    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    LIBRARY  561 

Coggeshall,  William  Turner:  The  signs  of  the  times;  comprising  a  history  of 
the  spirit-rappings,  in  Cincinnati  and  other  places,  with  notes  of  clairvoyant 
revealments.  Cincinnati,    1851* 

Coit,  Stanton:     Christian  Science;    why  Mrs.  Mary  Baker  Eddy  succeeded. 

London,  n.   d. 

Coleman,  Benjamin :  Spiritualism  in  America ;  with  fac-similes  of  spirit-draw- 
ings and  writing.  London,  1861* 

Colombiere.     (See  Vulson  de  la  C,  Marc). 

Colquhoun,  John  Campbell :  An  history  of  magic,  witchcraft,  and  animal  mag- 
netism. London,   1851.* 

Isis  revelata ;   an  inquiry  into  the  origin  ...  of  animal  magnetism. 

Edinburgh,  1836.* 
Colsenet,  Edmond  :     Etudes  sur  la  vie  inconsciente  de  l'esprit.  Paris,  1880.* 

Comet,   Charles   Jean   Baptiste :     La   verite  aux  medecins   et  aux   gens   du   monde 

sur  le  diagnostic  et  la  therapeutique  des  maladies,  eclaires  par  le  somnam- 

bulisme  naturel  lucide.  Paris,   1861.* 

Comstock,    George    Cary:     An    elementary    treatise    upon    the    method    of    least 

squares.  Boston,  1890. 

Confessions  of  a  medium.  New  York,  1882.* 

Confessions  of  an  assistant  clairvoyant.  (From  the  Outlook.)  New  York,  1913. 
Constable,  Frank  Challice  :     Personality  and  Telepathy.  London,   191 1.* 

Constant,   Alphonse   Louis :     Histoire   de   la  magie,   avec   une   exposition   claire   et 

precise  de  ses  precedes,  de  ses  rites  et  de  ses  mysteres,  par  filiphas  Levi ; 

avec  18  planches  representant  90  figures.  London,  i860.* 

The  mysteries  of  magic:   a  digest  of  the  writings  of  Eliphas  Levi  (pseud.) 

with  biographical  and  critical   essay  by  Arthur  Edward  White. 

London,   1897.* 

Transcendental  magic,  its  doctrine  and  ritual.  ...  A  complete  translation 

of  "Dogme  rituel  de  la  haute  magie"  with  biographical  preface  by  Waite. 

London,  1896. 
Conway,  Moncure  Daniel :  Demonology  and  devil-lore.  2  vols.  New  York,  1879. 
Conybeare,  Frederick  Cornwallis :     Myth,  magic,  and  morals.  London,   1909. 

Cooper,  Robert :  Spiritual  experiences,  including  seven  months  with  the  brothers 
Davenport.  London,    1867.* 

Cooper,  Sir  William  Earnshaw :  Spiritual  science;  here  and  hereafter;  a  study 
of  spiritual  philosophy  and  its  practical  application  to  the  every-day  of  life. 

Chicago,  191 1.* 

Where   two   worlds   meet ;    bridging   the   gulf  between   matter  and   spirit. 

London,  1914* 
Cooper,  William  M. :     Flagellation  and  the  flagellants ;    a  history  of  the  rod  in  all 

countries.  London,  1896.* 

Coover,  John  Edgar:     Investigation   with  a  "trumpet"  medium  by   the   California 

Psychical  Research  Society.  New  York,   1914. 

Coriat,  Isador  H. :     Abnormal  psychology.  New  York,  1910. 

The  meaning  of  dreams.  Boston,  1915. 

Correas,  Gonzalo:     Vocabulario  de  refranes  y  frases  proverbiales  y  otras  formulas 

comunes  de  la  lengua  castellana.  Madrid,   1906. 
Coste,  Adolphe:     Dieu  et  l'ame.  parjSj   ,8g0* 
Courtney,  W.  S. :     A  review  of  Dr.  Dods'  involuntary  theory  of  spiritual  manifes- 
tations. New  York,  1854.* 
Cox,  Edward  William:     Mechanism  of  man;    what  am  I?  London,  1876* 


562  APPENDIX  E 

Cox,  Edward  William :    A  monograph  on  sleep  and  dreams.  London,  1878.* 

Spiritualism  answered  by  science ;    with  proofs  of  a  psychic  force ;    with 

"Correspondence  upon  Dr.   Carpenter's  asserted   refutation  of  Mr.   Crooke's 
experimental  proof  of  the  existence  of  a  hitherto  undetected  force." 

London,   1872.* 
Cox,  George  William :     The  mythology  of  the  Aryan  nations.  London,   1887. 

and  Jones,  Eustace  Hinton :     Popular  romances  of  the  middle  ages. 

New  York,  1886. 

Craig,  A.  R. :     Modern  palmistry.  New  York,  1867. 

Cramer,  August :     Die  Hallucinationen  im  Muskelsinn  bei  Geisteskranken  und  ihre 

klinische  Bedeutung;    ein  Beitrag  zur  Kentniss  des  Peranoia.     Freiburg,   1889. 

Crane,  Aaron  Martin :     Right  and  wrong  thinking  and  their  results.     Boston,  1905. 

A  search  after  ultimate  truth.  Boston,   1910. 

Crane,  Thomas  Frederick :     Italian   popular  tales.  Boston,   1885. 

Crocq,  Jean :     L'hypnotisme  et  le  crime.  Bruxelles,  1894. 

L'hypnotisme  scientifique.  Paris,  1900.* 

Crookes,  Sir  William:     Researches  in  phenomena  of  spiritualism;    Psychic  force 

and  modern  spiritualism.  London,  1874.* 

On  Psychical  Research.  (In  Annual  report  of  the  Smithsonian  Institu- 
tion). Washington,  1899. 

Crosland,   Newton :     Apparitions.  London,    1873.* 

Crowe,   Mrs.    Catherine    (Stevens):     The  night   side   of   nature;    or,   Ghosts   and 

ghost-seers.  London,   1854.* 

Spiritualism  and  the  age  we  live  in.  London,  1859* 

Crowell,  Eugene :     The  identity  of  primitive  Christianity  and  modern  spiritualism. 

2  vols.  New  York,  1875.* 

Cullerre,  Alexandre :  Magnetisme  et  hypnotisme ;  expose  des  phenomenes  ob- 
serves pendant  le  sommeil  nerveux  provoque,  au  point  de  vue  clinique,  psy- 
chologique,  therapeutique,  et  medico-legal,  avec  un  resume  historique  du 
magnetisme   animal.  Paris,    1887.* 

Cumberland,  Stuart :     A  thought-reader's  thoughts.  London,  1888.* 

Cumont,  Franz:     Astrology  and   religion  among  the  Greeks  and   Romans. 

New   York,    1912. 

The   mysteries  of  Mithra.  Chicago,   1910. 

Cunningham,   Allan :     Traditional   tales  of  the  English  and   Scottish   peasantry. 

London,   1887. 
Curtin,  Jeremiah :     Myths  and  folk-tales  of  the  Russians,  western  Slavs  and  Mag- 
yars. London,   1890. 

Myths  of  the  Modocs.  Boston,   1912. 

Tales  of  the   fairies  and  of  the  ghost  world,  collected  from  oral  tradition 

in  southwest  Munster.  London,  1895.* 

Curtis,  Adela  Marion :     The  new  mysticism.     3d  ed.  London,   1913.* 

Cushing,  Frank  Hamilton:     Zuni  folk  tales.  New  York,  1901. 

Cutten,   George   Barton :     Three   thousand  years  of  mental   healing. 

New  York,  191 1. 

Czuber,    Emanuel :     Die    Entwickelung    der    Wahrscheinlichkeitstheorie    und    ihrer 

Anwendungen.  Leipzig,   1899. 

Theorie   der   Beobachtungsfehler.  Leipzig,    1891. 

Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung    und    ihre    Anwendung    auf    Fehlerausglei- 

chung,  Statistik  und  Lebensversicherung.  Leipzig,   1903. 

2d  ed.    2  vols.  Leipzig,  1908-10. 


BOOKS    IN    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH     LIBRARY 


563 


Dahnhardt,  Oskar  :     Naturgeschichtliche  Volksmarchen. 
Natursagen ;     eine    Sammlung    naturdeutender    Sagen 

und   Legenden.     4  vols. 
Dailey,   Abram   H. :     Mollie   Fancher,   the   Brooklyn   enigma. 

ment  of  facts  in  the  life  of  Mary  J.  Fancher. 


Leipzig,  1909. 
,    Marchen,    Fabeln 
Leipzig,   1907. 
An   authentic   state- 
Brooklyn,   1894.* 


Dallas,  Helen  A.:  Mors  janua  vitae?  A  discussion  of  certain  communications 
purporting  to  come  from  Frederic  W.  H.   Myers.  London,   1910.* 

The  dangers  of  spiritualism,  being  record  of  personal  experience  by  a  member  of 
the  society  for  psychical  research.  London,  1901. 

Danville,   Gaston :     Magnetisme   et   spiritisme.  Paris,   1908. 

Darling,  H.  G.  (ed.)  :     Electrical-psychology.  London,  1851* 

Darwin,  Erasmus:     Zoonomia ;    or  The  laws  of  organic  life.  London,  1796. 

Dasent,  Sir  George  Webbe :     Popular  tales  from  the  Norse.    2d  ed.     London,  1907. 

Davenport,  C.  B. :  Statistical  methods,  with  special  reference  to  biological  varia- 
tion.   2d  ed.  New  York,  1904. 

Davenport,   Frederick    Morgan :     Primitive   traits    in    religious    survivals. 

New  York,   1905. 

Davenport,  Reuben  Briggs :  Death-blow  to  spiritualism ;  being  the  true  story  of 
the  Fox  sisters  as  revealed  by  authority  of  Margaret  Fox  Kane  and  Cath- 
erine Fox  Jencken.  New  York,  1888.* 

Davies,  Thomas  Witton :  Magic,  divination,  and  demonology  among  the  Hebrews 
and  their  neighbors. 

Davis,   Andrew   Jackson :     Answers   to  ever-recurring  questions 
7th  ed. 

The  approaching  crisis. 

Arabula ;    or,  the  divine  guest.    6th  ed. 

The  children's   progressive   lyceum.      1st  ed. 

■ —     2d  ed. 

6th  ed. 

Death  and  the  after-life.     Rev.  and  enl. 


London,  1898.* 

from   the   people. 

Boston,   1862.* 

Rochester,   1910.* 

Rochester,  191 1* 

Boston,   18—.* 

Boston,  1865. 

Boston,  1867. 

Rochester,  1911.* 

Rochester,  1911. 

Rochester,  191 1* 

Rochester, 


-  The  Diakka,  and  their  earthly  victims. 

-  Events  in  the  life  of  a  seer.    6th  ed. 

-  The  fountain ;    with  jets  of  new  meanings.    6th  ed. 

-  Free    thoughts    concerning    religion ;     or,    Nature    versus    theology. 
and  enl.  Rochester, 

-  The  genesis  and  ethics  of  conjugal  love.  Rochester, 


1911.* 

Rev. 

1911* 

1911* 


-  The  great  harmonia ;    being  a  philosophical  revelation  of  the  natural,  spir 
itual,  and   celestial   universe.     5   vols. 

-  The  harbinger  of  health.     19th  ed. 

-  The  harmonial  man;    or,  Thoughts  for  the  age. 

-  The  history  and  philosophy  of  evil.     Rev.  and  enl. 

-  Lectures  on  clairmativeness. 

-  The  magic  staff;    an  autobiography. 

-  Memoranda  of  persons,  places,  and  events. 

-  The  penetralia ;    being  harmonial  answers  to  important  questions. 

Rochester 

-  The  philosophy  of  special  providences.     3d  ed. 

-  The  philosophy  of  spiritual  intercourse. 

-  The  present  age  and  inner  life.     12th  ed.  rev. 

-  The  principles  of  nature,  her  divine  revelations,  and  a  voice  to  mankind 

Rochester,  1911.* 


Rochester,  1910.' 
Rochester,  1909.* 
Boston,  1872.* 
Rochester,  1910.* 
New  York, 
Rochester, 
New  York, 


1845.* 

1910.* 

911. 


Rochester, 
Rochester, 


1911.* 
1910* 
1910* 


Rochester,  1910.* 


564  APPENDIX  E 

Davis,  Andrew  Jackson :     A  sacred  book,  containing  old  and  new  gospels. 

Boston,  1873. 

A  stellar  key  to  the  summer-land.  Boston,  1867.* 

Pt.  I.     5th  ed.  rev.  Rochester,  1910.* 

The  temple  ;   concerning  diseases  of  the  brain  and  nerves.    Rochesetr,  1910.* 

Views  of  our  heavenly  home;  a  sequel  to  "A  stellar  key  to  the  summer- 
land."  Rochester,  1910* 

Davis,   H.    P. :     Expose   of   Newburyport   eccentricities,   witches,   and   witchcraft. 

Massachusetts,  1873.* 

Davis,  Richard  Harding :     Vera  the  medium.  New  York,  1908.* 

De  Benneville,  James  Sequin:     Saito  Musachi-bo  Benkei.     (Tales  of  the  wars  of 

the  Gompei).  Yokohama,   1910. 

Tales  of  the  samurai.  Yokohama,  1915. 

De  Camp,  Etta  :     Return  of  Frank  R.  Stockton  ;    stories  and  letters  which  cannot 

fail  to  convince  the  reader  that  Frank  R.  Stockton  still  lives  and  writes 
through  the  instrumentality  of  Miss  Etta  de  Camp.  New  York,   1913.* 

Dee,  John  :     The  private  diary  of  John  Dee.     Edited  by  J.  O.   Halliwell. 

London,   1842. 

A   true   &   faithful   relation   of   what  passed   for  many  yeers  between   Dr. 

John   Dee  .  .  .  and   some  spirits.  London,    1659.* 

Defoe,  Daniel :  The  history  of  the  life  and  adventures  of  Duncan  Campbell,  a 
gentleman,  who  though  deaf  and  dumb,  writes  down  any  stranger's  name 
at  first  sight,  etc.  London,   1895. 

The  secrets  of  the  invisible  world  disclos'd ;    or,  An  universal  history  of 

apparitions,  sacred  and  profane,  under  all  denominations,  whether  angelical, 
diabolical,  or  human  souls  departed ;  with  a  great  variety  of  surprising  and 
diverting  examples,  never  publish'd  before ;  also  shewing  how  we  may  dis- 
tinguish between  the  apparitions  of  good  and  evil  spirits,  and  how  we 
ought  to  behave  to  them.  London,  1735.* 

Deinhard.  Ludwig :  Das  Mysterium  des  Menschen  im  Lichte  der  psychischen 
Forschung.  Berlin,   1910.* 

Dejerine,  Joseph  Jules,  and  Gauckler,  E. :  The  psychoneuroses  and  their  treat- 
ment by  psychotherapy.  Tr.  by  Jelliffe.  London,  1913.* 
Delaage,  Henri :  Le  monde  occulte ;  ou,  Mysteres  du  magnetisme.  Paris,  1856.* 
Delacroix,  Henri:  fitude  d'histoire  et  psychologie  du  mysticisme.  Paris,  1908.* 
Delanne,    Gabriel :     L'ame    est   immortelle ;     demonstration    experimentale. 

Paris,   1899* 

L'evolution    animique ;     essais    de    psychologie    physiologique    suivant    le 

spiritisme.  Paris,  1897.* 

Le  phenomene  spirite.  Paris,  1897.* 

Recherches  sur  la  mediumnite.  Paris,  1902.* 

Deleuze,  Joseph  Phillipe  Frangois :  Defense  du  magnetisme  animal  contre  les  at- 
taques  dont  il  est  l'objet  dans  le  dictionnaire  des  sciences  medicales. 

Paris,  1819.* 

Histoire  critique  du  magnetisme  animal.     2  vols.  Paris,  1819.* 

Memoire  sur  la  faculte  de  prevision,  suivi  de  notes  et  pieces  justificatives 

recueillies  par'M.   Mialle.  Paris,   1836.* 

Practical  instruction  in  animal  magnetism.  New  York,  1843. 

Delitzsch,  Franz  Julius :     A  system  of  biblical  psychology.  Edinburgh,   1899. 

Del  Rio,  Martin  Antoine.     (See  Rio,  Martin  Antoine  Del). 

Demarquay,   Jean    Nicolas :      Recherches    sur   l'hypnotisme  .  .  .  par   MM.    les    doc- 

teurs   Demarquay  .  .  .  et  Giraud-Teulon.  Paris,   i860.* 

Demonologia ;    or,  Natural  knowledge  revealed.    By  J.  S.  F.  London,  1827.* 


BOOKS    IN    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    LIBRARY  565 

De  Morgan,  Augustus:     Budget  of  paradoxes.     (Reprinted  from  Athenaeum'). 

London,  1872. 

De  Morgan,  Mrs.  Sophia  Elizabeth  Frend :  From  matter  to  spirit;  the  result  of 
ten  years'  experience  in  spirit  manifestations ;  intended  as  a  guide  to  in- 
quirers. London,   1863.* 

Dendy,  Walter  Cooper :  On  the  phenomena  of  dreams,  and  other  transient  il- 
lusions. London,  1832.* 

The  philosophy  of  mystery.  New  York,  1845.* 

De  Quincey,  Thomas:     Modern  Superstition.     (In  vol.  8  of  his  collected  writings.) 

Edinburgh,   1889-1890. 

The  confessions  of  an  English  opium-eater.  London,  1904. 

Dercum,  Francis  Xavier :     A  clinical  manual  of  mental  diseases. 

Philadelphia,  1914.* 

Derr,  Ezra :     The  uncaused  being  and  the  criterion  of  truth ;    to  which  is  appended 

an  examination  of  the  views  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  concerning  the  ether  of 

space.  Boston,  191 1.* 

Desertis,   V.   C. :      Psychic   philosophy  as   the   foundation   of  a   religion   of  natural 

law.     With  introductory  notes  by  Alfred  Russel  Wallace.  London,  1896.* 

Despine,  Prosper :     fitude  scientifique  sur  le  somnambulisme.  Paris,  1880* 

Dessoir,  Max:     Abriss  einer  Geschichte  der  Psychologie.  Heidelberg,  1911. 

Das  Doppel-ich.  Leipzig,  1896. 

Zur    Psychologie    der    Taschenspielerkunst.      (In    Psychologische    Skizzen, 

von  E.  W.  Rells).  Leipzig,  1893. 

Die  deutschen  Volksbiicher,  gesammelt  von  K.  Simrock.  Basel,  1887. 

Dewey,  Daisy  :     Problems  of  your  generation.  New  York,  1910. 

Dewey,  Dellon  Marcus :  History  of  the  strange  sounds  or  rappings,  heard  in  Roch- 
ester and  western  New  York,  and  usually  called  the  mysterious  noises ! 
which  are  supposed  by  many  to  be  communications  from  the  spirit  world; 
together  with  the  explanation  that  can  as  yet  be  given  of  the  matter. 

Rochester,  1850.* 

Dewey,  John :     German  philosophy  and  politics.  New  York,  1915. 

Dewey,  Orville :     The  problem  of  human  destiny.  New  York,  1864. 

Dewing,  Arthur  Stone :     Life  as  a  reality.  New  York,  1910. 

Dexter,  Edwin  Grant :     Weather  influences.  New  York,  1904. 

Dheur,  Pierre  :     Les  hallucinations  volontaires.  Paris,  1899.* 

Dichas,  A.  :     fitude  de  la  memoire  dans  ses  rapports  avec  le  sommeil  hvpnotique. 

Paris.  1887.* 

Dickens,  Charles :  The  mystery  of  Edwin  Drood ;  Complete.  Part  II  written  by 
the  spirit-pen  of  Dickens  through  a  medium.  Brattleboro,  1873. 

Dickinson,  Goldsworthy  Lowes:     Is  immortality  desirable?  Boston,  1909. 

Didier,  Adolphe  :     Animal  magnetism  and  somnambulism.  London,  1856.* 

Diefenbach,  Johann :  Der  Hexenwahn  vor  und  nach  der  Glaubenspaltung  in 
Deutschland.  Mainz.  1886.* 

Digby,  Sir  Kenelm :  Two  treatises ;  in  the  one  of  which,  the  nature  of  bodies,  in 
the  others,  the  nature  of  man's  soul  is  looked  into.  London,  1658.* 

A  discourse  on  witchcraft,  occasioned  by  a  bill  now  pending  in  Parliament  to  re- 
peal the  .  .  .  Act  against  conjuration  and  witchcraft.  London,  1736.* 

Dixon,  Jacob:     Clairvoyance,  hygienic  and  medical.  London,  185 — (?)* 

Do  the  dead  return?  ...  By  a  clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England. 

London,  1893.* 

Doane,  William  Croswell :     Seducing  spirits,  and  doctrines  of  devils. 

New  York,  1863.* 


566  APPENDIX  E 

Dods,  John  Bovee :  The  philosophy  of  electrical  psychology :  in  a  course  of  twelve 
lectures.  New  York,  1854.* 

Philosophy  of  electro-biology.  London,  1852.* 

Spirit   manifestations  examined  and   explained;    Judge   Edmonds   refuted; 

or,  An  exposition  of  the  involuntary  powers  and  instincts  of  the  human 
mind.  New  York,  1854.* 

Dolbear,  Amos  Emerson  :     Known  relations  between  mind  and  matter.  1876. 

Matter,  ether,  and  motion.  London,  1903.* 

Dolz,  Johann  Christian:     Denkspriiche.  Leipzig,  1815. 

Dorman,  Rushton  M. :  The  origin  of  primitive  superstitions,  and  their  develop- 
ment into  the  worship  of  spirits.  Philadelphia,  1881.* 

Dornbliith,  Otto  Wilhelm  Albert  Julius :     Hygiene  der  geistigen  Arbeit. 

Berlin,   1908. 

Doughty,  John :  The  Garden  of  Eden ;  giving  a  spiritual  interpretation  and  true 
meaning  of  the  story.  Philadelphia,  n.  d. 

Drake,  Mrs.  Maud  Eugenia  Barrock  Lord :  Psychic  light  the  continuity  of  law 
and  life.  Kansas  City,  Mo.,  1904.* 

Drake,  Samuel  Adams :     The  myths  and  fables  of  to-day.  Boston,  1900. 

Drake,  Samuel  Gardner :  The  witchcraft  delusion  in  New  England ;  its  rise, 
progress,  and  termination,  as  exhibited  by  Dr.  Cotton  Mather,  in  The  won- 
ders of  the  invisible  world;  and  by  Mr.  Robert  Calef,  in  his  More  wonders 
of  the  invisible  world ;  With  a  preface,  introduction,  and  notes. 

Roxbury,  Mass.,  1866.* 

Draper,  John  William :     The  history  of  the  conflict  between  religion  and  science. 

New  York,  1875. 

Dresslar,  Fletcher  Bascom:     Superstition  and  education.  Berkeley,  1907. 

Drews,  Arthur :     Das  Ich  als  Grundproblem  der  Metaphysik.  Freiburg,  1897. 

Die  Christusmythe.  Jena,  191a 

Drummond,  Henry :     Natural  law  in  the  spiritual  world.  New  York,  1884. 

Dubet,  Alban :     Les  hallucinations ;  etude  synthetique  des  etats  physiologiques  et 

psychologiques  de  la  veille  du  sommeil  naturel  et  magnetique  de  la  medium- 
nite  et  du  magisme.  Paris,   1898.* 

Dublin  University :    Miscellanae  Mystica.  May,  1845. 

Dubois:  Ueber  Suggestion  und  Psychotherapie.  (In  Correspondenzblatt  fur 
Schweizer  Aertze.) 

Dubois,  Paul :     The  influence  of  the  mind  on  the  body. 

Nervous  states,  their  nature  and  causes.     Tr.  by  E.  G. 

The  psychic  treatment  of  nervous  disorders. 

The  psychological  origin  of  mental  disorders. 

Self-control  and  how  to  secure  it. 

Du  Bois-Reymond,  E. :     Untersuchungen  iiber  thierische  Elektricitat.     2  vols,  in  3. 

Berlin,  1848. 

Ducasse,   Victor:      Le   spiritisme   et   l'eglise;     reimpression   d'une   controverse  .  .  . 

entre  Mgr.  Meurin,  S.  J.  .  .  .  et  Jacques  Tolerant   (Victor  Ducasse)  ;  avec 

une  preface  de  M.  P.  G.  Leymarie.  Maurice,  1893.* 

Duchatel,  Edmond :    La  vue  a  distance  dans  le  temps  et  dans  l'espace.    Paris,  1910.* 

Dugas,  L.,  and  Moutier,  F. :    La  depersonnalisation.  Paris,  191 1.* 

Dumas,  Georges:    La  logique  d'un  dement,  Louis  Garin.     (In  Revue  Philosophique, 

v.  65.)  Paris,  1916. 

Dunand,  Tony  J.  C. :     Magnetisme ;    somnambulisme ;    hypnotisme.  Paris,  i860. 

Dunlap,  Samuel  Fales :     Vestiges  of  the  spirit-history  of  man.        New  York,  1858. 


Basel, 

1900. 

New  York, 

1911. 

ichards. 
New  York, 

1 910. 

New  York, 

1909. 

New  York, 

I9I3- 

New  York, 

1909. 

BOOKS    IN    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    LIBRARY 


567 


Dupau,  Jean  Amedee:  Lettres  physiologiques  et  morales  sur  le  magnetisme  ani- 
mal Paris,  1826.* 

Du  Potet  de  Sennevoy,  Jean :  Expose  des  experiences  sur  le  magnetisme  animal, 
faites  a  l'Hotel-Dieu  de  Paris,  pendant  le  cours  des  mois  d'octobrc,  novein- 
bre  et  decembre,  1820.  Paris,   1821.* 

An  introduction  to  the  study  of  animal  magnetism.  London,   1838.* 

Le  magnetisme  oppose  a  la  medecine.  Paris,  1840.' 

Dupouy,    Edmond:     Psychologie   morbide,   des   vesanies    religieuses   erreurs,   croy- 

ances  fixes,  hallucinations  &  suggestions   collectives.  Paris,   1007.* 

Sciences  occultes  et  physiologie  psychique.  Paris,  1808* 

Du    Prel,   Karl   Ludwig   August   Friedrich    Maximilian    Alfred:     Die    Entdeckung 

der   Seele   durch   die   Geheimwissenschaften.     2  vols.  Leipzig,    1895.* 

The  philosophy  of  mysticism.     Tr.  by  C.  C.  Massey.     2  vols. 

London,  1889.* 

Studien  aus  dem  Gebiete  der  Geheimwissenschaften.  Leipzig,  1905.* 


Dupuis,  Charles  Frangois :     Origine  de  tous  les  cultes ;    ou,  Religion  universale. 

5  vols.  Parls-   1795- 

Durand,  J.   P. :     Electro-dynamisme  vital.  Paris,   1855* 

Durville,  H. :     Le  fantome  des  vivants ;    anatomie  et  physiologie  de  l'ame ;    recher- 

ches  experimentales  sur  le  dedoublement  des  corps  de  l'homme.     Paris,  1909.* 

Traite  experimental  de  magnetisme  avec  figures  dans  le  texte ;    cours  pro- 

fesse  a  l'ficole  pratique  de  magnetisme  et  de  massage.  Paris,  1808.* 

Eastman,  Charles  A.:     The  soul  of  the  Indian.  Boston,  1911. 

Eaves,  A.  Osborne:     The  art  of  luck.  Harrogate,  n.  d* 

Ebbard,  Richard  J.:     How  to  acquire  and  strengthen  will-power.     12th  ed. 

London,  1915* 

fidard    Guillaume:     Vitalisme   curatif  par   les  appareils   electro-magnetiques. 

Paris,  1885.* 

Eddy    Mrs   Mary  Morse  Baker  Glover:     Christian  healing;    and  The  people's  idea 
'  of  God.  Boston,  1915. 

Christian   Science  versus  pantheism;    and  other  messages  to  the  Mother 

Church.  Boston,  191 5- 
The  First  Church  of  Christ  Scientist,  and  miscellany.  Boston,  1916. 

Miscellaneous  writings.  Boston,   1897. 

No  and  yes.  Boston,   1916. 

Pulpit   and   press.  Boston,   1916. 

Retrospection   and   introspection.  Boston,    1006. 

Rudimental  divine   science.  Boston,   1915. 

Science  and  health,  with  key  to  the  scriptures.  Boston,  1905. 

Boston,   1913. 

Boston,   1916. 
Unity  of  good.  Boston,  1916. 


Edmonds  John  Worth :  Letters  and  tracts  on  spiritualism ;  also  two  inspirational 
orations  by  Cora  L.  V.  Tappan ;  and  particulars  respecting  the  personal 
career  and  passing  away  of  Judge  Edmonds.  London,  1875.* 

Spiritual  tracts.     13  nos.  in  1  vol.  New  York,  1858-73.* 

antj  Dexter,  George  T. :     Spiritualism.     2  vols.     10th  ed.     New  York,  1866. 

Edwardes,  Marian:  A  dictionary  of  nonclassical  mythology,  compiled  by  M.  Ed- 
war'des  and  Lewis  Spence.  New  York,  1912. 

Eickwald,  Karl:     Niederdeutsche   Sprichworter  und  Redensarten.       Leipzig,   i860. 


568  APPENDIX  E 

Eisenstadter,  Julius :     Elementargedanke  und  Uebertragungstheorie  in  der  Volker- 

kunde.  Stuttgart,  1912. 

Eisler,  Rudolf:     Grundlagen  des  Geisteslebens.  Leipzig,  1908. 

Leib   und   Seele.  Leipzig,    1906. 

Elliot,  Hugh  S.  R. :     Modern  science  and  the  illusions  of  Professor  Bergson. 

London,   1912. 

Elliott,  Charles  Wyllys :  Mysteries ;  or,  Glimpses  of  the  supernatural,  containing 
accounts  of  the  Salem  witchcraft,  the  Cock-Lane  ghost,  the  Rochester  rap- 
pings,  the  Stratford  mysteries,  oracles,  astrology,  dreams,  demons,  ghosts, 
spectres,  etc.  New  York,  1852.* 

Elliott,  Maud  Howe :  Laura  Bridgman,  Dr.  Howe's  famous  pupil  and  what  he 
taught  her.  Boston,  1904. 

Ellis,  Arthur  J.:  A  history  of  water-witching;  with  a  bibliography.  (U.  S.  De- 
partment of  the  Interior;    Water-supply  paper  416).  Washington,  1917. 

Ellis,  Havelock:     The  world  of  dreams.  Boston,  191 1. 

Elworthy,  Frederick  Thomas :  The  evil  eye ;  an  account  of  this  ancient  and  wide- 
spread superstition.  London,   1895. 

Emminghaus,  Hermann :  Allgemeine  Psychopathologie  zur  Einfuhrung  in  das  Stu- 
dium  der  Geistesstorungen.  Leipzig,  1878. 

Emmons,  Samuel  Bulfinch :     The  spirit  land.  Philadelphia,   1859* 

Encyklopadie  der  mathematischen  Wissenschaften  mit  Einschluss  ihrer  Anwen- 
dungen.  Leipzig,  1898. 

Ennemoser,  Joseph :     The  history  of  magic.  London,  1854.* 

Entretiens  sur  le  magnetisme  animal  et  le  sommeil  magnetique  dit  somnambu- 
lisme.  Paris,  1823.* 

Erichsen,  Leo   (pseud.).     (See  Moyscowicz.) 

Ermacora,  Giovanni  Battista :     La  telepatia.  Padova,  1898.* 

Esdaile,  James :  Mesmerism  in  India,  and  its  practical  application  in  surgery  and 
medicine.  Chicago,  1902.* 

Natural  and  mesmeric  clairvoyance,  with  the  practical  application  of  mes- 
merism in  surgery  and  medicine.  London,   1852.* 

Esperance,  E.  d' :     Au  pays  de  l'ombre.  Paris,  1899.* 

Im  Reich  der  Schatten.  Berlin,   1897. 

Esquirol,  Jean  fitienne  Dominique  :     Des  maladies  mentales.  Paris,  1838. 
Essays  philosophical  and  psychological,   in  honor  of  William  James ;    by  his   col- 
leagues at  Columbia  University.  New  York,  1908. 

Estlake,  Allan :  The  Oneida  community ;  a  record  of  an  attempt  to  carry  out  the 
principles   of   Christian   unselfishness   and   scientific   race-improvement. 

London,  1900.* 
Eucken,  Rudolf  Christof:     Collected  essays.  London,  1914. 

Main  currents  of  modern  thought.  London,  1912. 

Evans,  Henry  Ridgely  :     Magic  and  its  professors.  Philadelphia,  1902* 

The  spirit  world  unmasked.  Chicago,  1902* 

Evans,   Warren   F. :     The   mental-cure,   illustrating  the   influence   of   the   mind   on 

the  body,  both  in  health  and  disease,  and  the  psychological  method  of  treat- 
ment. Boston,   1874* 

The   primitive   mind-cure.  Boston,    1885.* 

Soul  and  body.  Boston,  1876.* 

Ewano,  Karl:     Das  Wesen  der  Weltseele  im  Lichte  der  exakten   Philosophie. 

Dresden.  1910.* 

Ewer,   Ferdinand   C. :     Two   eventful   nights,    or,   The    fallibility   of   "spiritualism" 

'exposed.  New  York.  1856* 


BOOKS    IN    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    LIBRARY  569 

Exposition  of  spiritualism,  An ;    two  series  of  letters.  London,  1862. 

Exsul    (Pseud.)  :     Psychische    Kraftiibertragung.  Stuttgart,    1896.* 

Fairfax,  Edward  :     Daemonologia ;   a  discourse  on  witchcraft.        Harrogate,  1882.* 
Falcomer,  M.  T. :     Phenomenographie ;    ou,  Recherches  originales  sur  les  facultes 

peu  connues   de  l'homme.  Paris,   1903.* 

Fallen  angels ;    a  disquisition  upon  human  existence,  an  attempt  to  elucidate  some 

of  its  mysteries,  especially  those  of  evil  and  of  suffering,  by  one  of  them. 

London,   1896.* 
Faraday,  M.     (See  Origins  of  Christianity.) 
Faraday,   Michael :     Experimental   researches  in  chemistry  and  physics. 

London,   1859. 

Farmer,  Hugh:     A  dissertation  on  miracles.  London,   1771* 

The  general  prevalence   of  the  worship  of  human   spirits,   in  the  ancient 

heathen  nations.  London,  1783.* 

Farmer,  John  S. :     'Twixt  two  worlds ;    a  narrative  of  the  life  and  work  of  Wil- 
liam  Eglinton.  London,   1886.* 
Farnell,  Lewis   Richard :     The  evolution  of   religion.  London,  1905. 
Farnsworth,  Edward  C. :     The  passing  of  Mary  Baker  Eddy.  Portland,  Me.,  191 1. 

The  sophistries  of  Christian  science.  Portland,  Me.,  1909. 

Farrer,  J.  A. :     Literary  forgeries.  London,  1907. 

Fechner,  Gustav  Theodor :     Das   Biichlein  vom  Leben  nach  dem  Tode. 

Hamburg,   1906. 

Erinnerungen  an  die  letzten  Tage  der  Odlehre  und  ihres  Urhebers. 

Leipzig,   1876* 

Kleine  Schriften,  von  Dr.  Mises   (Pseud.)  ;    ch.  I.  Beweis  dass  der  Mond 

aus  Iodine  besteht ;  ch.  III.  Schutzmittel  fur  die  Cholera;  ch.  IV.  Verglei- 
chende  Anatomie  der  Engel ;  ch.  V.  Vier  Paradoxa;  (1)  Der  Schatten  ist 
lebendig;    (2)   Der  Raum  hat  vier  Dimensionen;    (3)   Es  giebt  Hexerei. 

Leipzig,   1875. 

On  life  after  death.  Chicago,  1906. 

Ueber  die  Bestimmung  des  wahrscheinlichen  Fehlers  eines  Beobachtungs- 

mittels  durch  die  Summe.  Leipzig,  1874. 

Ueber   die   subjectiven   Nachbilder   und   Nebenbilder.  Leipzig,    1840. 

Vom  voriibergenden  Magnetismus.  Leipzig,   1842. 

Zend-Avesta ;    oder,  Ueber  die  Dinge  des  Himmels  und  des  Jenseits  vom 

Standpunkt   der   Naturbetrachtung.     2  vols.  Leipzig,   1906. 

Felix,  Jose   de  Augusta   (Ed.)  :     Lecturas   araucanas.  Valdiva,   1910. 

Fere,    Charles    Samson :     La    pathologie    des    emotions ;     etudes   physiologiques   et 

cliniques.  Paris,  1892.* 

Sensation   et   mouvement.  Paris,   1900. 

Ferenczi,   S. :     Introjection  und  Ubertragung ;    eine  psychoanalitische  Studie. 

Leipzig,  1910.* 
Ferriar,  John  :  An  essay  towards  a  theory  of  apparitions.  London,  1813* 
Ferrier,  David :  The  function  of  the  brain.  London,  1886. 
Ferron.  H.  de :  La  question  des  deux  chambres.  Paris.  1872* 
Feuchtersleben,  Ernst:  Health  and  suggestion.  New  York.  1910. 
Figuier,  Louis:  Les  bonheurs  d'outre-tombe.  2d  ed.  Paris,  1893.* 
Histoire  du  merveilleux  dans  les  temps  modernes.  Paris,   i860.* 

Le  lendemain   de   la   mort.  Paris,    1871* 

Finot    Jean:     The  science  of  happiness.     Tr.  from  the   loth  French  ed.  by  Mary 

'  f.   Saffprd.  New  York,   1914.* 


570  APPENDIX  I£ 

Fischer,   Wilhelm :     Aberglauben   aller   Zeiten.     5   vols,   in   I.         Stuttgart,   1906-7. 

Fisher,   Arne :     The    mathematical   theory   of   probabilities    and   its    application    to 

frequency  curves  and  statistical  methods.  New  York,  1915.* 

Fiske,  John  :     The  destiny  of  man,  viewed  in  the  light  of  his  origin.      Boston,  1884. 

Life  everlasting.  Boston,  1901. 

Myths  and  mythmakers.  Boston,   1892. 

The  unseen  world  and  other  essays.  Boston,  1876.* 

Fitzgerald,   Mrs.   Penelope   Frederica:     An   essay   on   the   philosophy   of  self-con- 
sciousness. '  Cincinnati,   1883.* 

Flammarion,  Camille  :    Les  forces  naturelles  inconnues.  Paris,  1909.* 

L'inconnu  et  les  problemes  psychiques.  Paris,  1900.* 

Mysterious   psychic   forces ;    an   account   of  the   author's   investigations   in 

psychical  research,  together  with  those  of  other  European  savants. 

Boston,  1007. 

Unbekannte  Naturkrafte.  Stuttgart,  1903.* 

Flechsig,  Paul :     Die  Grenzen  geistiger  Gesundheit  und  Krankheit.       Leipzig,  1896. 
Fleischmann,  Arthur:     Ueber  die  objective  Existenz  der  psychischen  Energie.     (In 

Archiv  fiir  Systematische  Philosophic,  vol.  15.)  Berlin,  1909. 

Fletcher,  Horace:     Menticulture;    or,  The  A-B-C  of  true  living.  Chicago,  1895. 

Fletcher,  James  Henry :     Spiritualism ;    its  truth,  helpfulness  and  danger. 

New  York,  1915.* 
Florence,  F.  C. :     Spirit  mediums  exposed.     By  Prof.  S.  S.  Baldwin. 

Melbourne,  1879. 
Flournoy,  Theodore :     Des  Indes  a  la  planete  Mars.  Paris,  1900. 

Esprits  et  mediums.  Paris,  191 1.* 

From  India  to  the  planet  Mars.  New  York,  1900. 

Spiritism  and  psychology.     Introduction  by  H.  Carrington. 

New  York,  191 1.* 
Flower,   Benjamin  Orange :     Christian   Science  as  a   religious  belief  and  a  thera- 
peutic agent.  Boston,  1909. 
Fogel,  Edwin  Miller :     Beliefs  and  superstitions  of  the  Pennsylvania  Germans. 

Philadelphia,  1915. 

Fonsegrive,  Georges  Pierre  Lespinasse :     Essai  sur  le  libre  arbitre,  sa  theorie  et  son 

histoire.  Paris,  1887. 

Fontan,  Jules   Antoine    fimile :     filements  dc  medecine  suggestive   .   .   .   par  le  Dr. 

J.  Fontan  .  .  .  et  le  Dr.  Ch.  Segard.  Paris,  1887.* 

Fontenay,  Guillaume   de :     La  photographie  et  l'etude  des  phenomenes  psychiques, 

abrege   de   trois   conferences    donnees   par   l'auteur    a  la   societe  uiiiversclle 

d'etudes  psychiques,  en  1910  et  191 1.    Preface  de  M.  d'Arsonval. 

Paris,  1912. 
Forel,  Auguste  Henri :     Gehirn  und  Seele.     10th  ed.  Stuttgart,  1907. 

Hygiene  of  nerves  and  mind  in  health  and  disease.  London,  1907. 

Hypnotism.  New  York,  CI907. 

Der  Hypnotismus.  Stuttgart,  1907. 

Forlong,  James  George  Roche :     Faiths  of  man ;    a  cyclopaedia  of  religion. 

London,  1006. 
Forrester,  Alfred  Henry:     (Pseud.)     (See  Oliphant,  Mrs.  Margaret.) 
Fortier,  Alcee :     Louisiana  folk-tales,  in  French  dialect  and  English  translation. 

Boston,  1895. 
Foster,  Charles  H. :     The  commonsense  philosophy  of  spirit  or  psychology. 

San  Francisco,  1001. 


BOOKS    IN    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    LIBRARY  571 

Foucart,   Paul   Frangois :     Les   grands   mysteres   l'Eleusis ;    personnel,   ceremonies. 

Paris,  1900. 

Les  mysteres  d'Eleusis.  Paris,   1914. 

Foundations ;    a  statement  of  Christian  belief  in  terms  of  modern  thought,  by  seven 

Oxford  men.  London,   1913. 

Fournier  d'Albe,  Edmund  Edward :     New  light  on  immortality.  London,  1908.* 

Two  new  worlds;    (1)  The  infra-world;    (2)  The  supra-world. 

London,  1907. 

Fox,  Charles  Daniel :     Psychopathology  of  hysteria.  Boston,   1913.* 

France,  Anatole  :     Vie  de  Jeanne  d'Arc.  Paris,  1908. 

Franck,  Adolphe :     La  Kabbale,  ou  La  philosophie  religieuse  des  Hebreux. 

Paris,  1843* 

Frank,  Henry:  Psychic  phenomena,  science  and  immortality;  being  a  further  ex- 
cursion into  unseen  realms  beyond  the  point  previously  explored  in  "Modern 
light  on  immortality,"  and  a  sequel  to  that  previous  record.        Boston,  191 1* 

Franz,  Shepherd  Ivory :     Handbook  of  mental  examination  methods. 

New  York,  1912. 

Frapart,  N.  N. :  Lettres  sur  le  magnetisme  et  le  somnambulisme,  a  l'occasion  de 
Mademoiselle  Pigeaire,  a  M.  Arago.     (ed.)  Paris,   1839.* 

Frazer,  James  George:  The  belief  among  the  Aborigines  of  Australia.  (In  vol.  1 
of  The  belief  in  immortality  and  the  worship  of  the  dead.)  London,  1913. 

Folk-lore  in  the  Old  Testament.     (In  Anthropological  Essays.) 

New  York,  1907. 

The  golden  bough.  New  York,  1894. 

The  golden  bough  :  a  study  in  magic  and  religion.     3d  ed. 

London,   1907-1915. 

Lectures  on  the  early  history  of  the  kingship.  New  York,  1005. 

Fremery,  H.  N.  de :     Handleiding  tot  de  kennis  van  het  spritisme.      Bussum,  1904.* 

Telepathie   (Gedankeniibertragung).  Leipzig,  1005.* 

Frere,  Ph.  A. :     Examen  du  magnetisme  animal.  Paris,  1837.* 

Freud,  Sigmund :     The  interpretation  of  dreams.     Tr.  by  Brill.         New  York,  1913. 

Selected  papers  on  hysteria  and  other  psychoneuroses.    Tr.  by  Brill. 

New  York,  1909. 
■     Die  Traumdeutung.                                                                               Leipzig,  1909. 

Zur  Psychopathologie  des  Alltagslebens.  Berlin,  1910. 

Frichsen,  Leo  (Pseud.).     (See  Moyscowicz,  Leo.) 

Frischbier,   Karl   Hermann :     Preussische  Sprichworter  und  volkthiimliche   Reden- 

sarten.  Berlin,  1865-76. 

Froebe,  Robert :    Theosophie  und  Aberglaube.  Lorch,  1908* 

Funk,  Isaac  Kaufmann  :    The  psychic  riddle.  New  York,  1907.* 

The  widow's  mite  and  other  psychic  phenomena.  New  York,  191 1.* 

Fussell,  Joseph  H. :     Incidents  in  the  history  of  the  theosophical  movement  founded 

in  New  York  City  in  1875.  Point  Loma,  Cal.,  1912. 

Gabius,  P. :     Denkokonomie  und  Energieprinzip.  Berlin,  1913.* 

Gall,  Franz  Josef.     (See  Some  account  of  new  theory,  &c.) 
Garcin,  Dr.:     Le  magnetisme  explique  par  Iui-meme;   ou,  Nouvelle  theorie  des  phe- 

nomenes  de  l'etat  magnetique  compares  aux  phenomenes  de  l'etat  ordinaire. 

Paris,  1855.* 
Gardy,  Louis.     (See  D.  D.  Home.) 

Garland,  Hamlin:     The  shadow  world.  New  York,  1908.* 
The  tyranny  of  the  dark.  London.  1906.* 


572  APPENDIX  E 

Garner,  R.  O. :  Superstititions  of  the  West  African  tribes.  (In  Proceedings  Aus- 
tralian Association  for  advancement  of  science,  6th  report.)  Sydney,  1895. 

Garnett,  Lucy  Mary  Jane :     New  folk-lore  researches ;   Greek  folk  poesy. 

Guildford,  1896. 

Garrett,   F.    Edmund :      Isis   very   much   unveiled ;     being    the   story   of   the   great 
.     Mahatma  hoax.  London,  1894* 

Gasc-Desfosses,  fidouard :     Magnetisme  vital.    2e  ed.  Paris,  1907.* 

Gaskell,  W.  H.:     The  involuntary  nervous  system.  New  York,  1916. 

Gasparin,  Agenor  fitienne,  Comte  de :  Science  vs.  modern  spiritualism ;  A  treatise 
on  turning  tables,  the  supernatural  in  general,  and  spirits.  Tr.  from  the 
French  of  Count  Agenor  de  Gasparin,  by  E.  W.  Roberts ;  with  an  introduc- 
tion by  Rev.  Robert  Baird.  New  York,  1857* 

Gauthier,  Aubin  :  Histoire  du  somnambulisme  chez  tous  les  peuples,  sous  les  noms 
divers  d'extases,  songes,  oracles  et  visions ;  examen  des  doctrines  theoriques 
et  philosophiques — sur  ses  causes,  ses  effets,  ses  abus,  ses  avantages,  et 
l'utilite  de  son  concours  avec  la  medecine.  Paris,  1842.* 

Gauthier,  Louis  Philibert  Auguste :  Recherches  historiques  sur  l'exercice  de  la 
medecine  dans  les  temples,  chez  les  peuples  de  l'antiquite.  Paris,  1844.* 

Gebhardt,  Oscar  Leopold  von  :    Acta  martyrum  selecta.  Berlin,  1902. 

Geley,  Gustave :     L'etre  subcons.-ient.     ire  ed.  Paris,  1911.* 

Gentil,  Joseph  Adolphe :  Magnetisme-somnambulisme ;  manuel  elementaire  de 
l'aspirant  magnetiseur.     La  seconde  partie  de  mon  Guide  des  incredules. 

Paris,  1853.* 

Magnetisme,    somnambulisme ;     Guide    du    consultant    et    des    incredules. 

2e  ed.  Paris,  1853.* 

The  Gentleman's  Magazine  Library :     Vol.  3 ;  Popular  superstitions.     London,  1884. 
Gerundio,  Fray  (Pseud.).     (See  Lafuente  y  Zamalloa,  Modesto.) 
Gervasius   (of  Tilbury)  :     Otia  imperialia.     Hrsg.  von  F.  Liebrecht. 

Hannover,  1856. 
Geyser,  Joseph :    Die  Seele.  Leipzig.  IQ14. 

Giachetti,  Cipriano  :     La  medicina  dello  spirito.  Milano,  1913.* 

Gibbons,    Henry:      Modern    spiritism;     annual    address   before   the   San   Francisco 

medical  society.  San  Francisco,  1875. 

Gibier,  Paul :     Physiologie  transcendentale  ;   analyse  des  choses ;   essai  sur  la  science 

future.  Philadelphie,  1890.* 

Le  spiritisme.  Paris,  1904* 

Giessler.  Max :     Aus  den  Tiefen  des  Traumlebens ;    eine  psychologische  Forschung 

auf  grund  Eingehender  Beobachtungen.  Halle.  1890. 

Gifford,  George :     A  dialogue  concerning  witches  and  witchcraft ;    reprinted  from 

the  edition  of  1603.  London,  1842. 

Giles,  Chauncey :     De  l'esprit  et  de  l'homme  comme  etre  spirituel. 

New  York,  1875. 

Lectures  on  the  nature  of  spirit  and  of  man  as  a  spiritual  being.     Tr.  from 

the  French.  New  York,  1867. 

Gillen,  F.  J.:  Masic  amongst  the  natives  of  central  Australia.  (In  Proceedings 
Australian  Assn.  for  the  Advancement  of  Science,  vol.  8.)  Sydney,  1901. 

Gilles  de  La  Tourette,  Georges  Albert  Edouard  Brutus :  L'hypnotisme  et  les  etats 
analogues  au  point  de  vue  medico-legal.  Paris,  18S9* 

Gineste,  Raoul  (Pseud.).     (See  Augier.  Adolphe  Clovis.) 

Glanvill,  Joseph:  Sadducismus  triumphatus:  or,  A  full  and  plain  evidence  con- 
cerning witches  and  apparitions.     Done  into  English  by  Dr.  ITorneck. 

London,  1726.* 


BOOKS    IN    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    LIBRARY  573 

Glass,  Charles  E. :     Advance  thought,  with  essays  on  incentive,  scientific  religion, 

new  metaphysical  philosophy,  etc.  Melbourne,  18 — . 

Spiritual   revelation   through   Tom    Glen   and  others;     various   phases   of 

manifestation  and  their  usefulness.  Melbourne,  18 .* 

Glauber,  Johann  Rudolph  :     Explicatio.  Amsterdam,  1663. 

Glendinning,  Audrew  (Ed.)  :  The  veil  lifted;  A  paper  by  J.  T.  Taylor;  Letter  by 
H.  R.  Haweis;   Addresses  by  J.  Robertson.  London,  1894.* 

Godwin,  William :  Lives  of  the  necromancers ;  or,  an  Account  of  the  most 
eminent  persons  .  .  .  who  have  claimed  ...  or  to  whom  has  been  imputed 
.  .  .  the  exercise  of  magical  power.  London,  1876* 

Gomme,  Sir  George  Laurence:     Ethnology  in  folk-lore.  New  York,  1892. 

Folk-lore  as  an  historical  science.  London,  1908. 

The  traditional  games  of  England,  Scotland  and  Ireland.     London,  1894-8. 

Goodell,  Abner  Cheney,  Jr. :     Letter  from  Sir  W.  Phips  and  other  papers  relating 

to  witchcraft.      (In  Massachusetts  Historical   Society  Proceedings  2d  series, 
vol.   1).  Boston,   1885. 

Witch  trials  in  Massachusetts.  (In  Massachusetts  Historical  Society  Pro- 
ceedings, vol.  20.)  Boston,  1884. 

Goodhart,  Simon  P.     (See  Sidis.) 

Goodrich-Freer,   Ada :     The   alleged   haunting   of   B-house.  London,    1900  * 

Essays  in  psychical  research  by  Miss  X.  London,   1899* 

Gordon,  Geo.  A. :     Religion  and  miracle.  Boston,   1909. 

Gougenot  des  Mousseaux,  Henri  Roger :     Les  hauts  phenomenes  de  la  magie. 

Paris,  1864.* 

Les  mediateurs  et  les  moyens  de  la  magie;  les  hallucinations  et  les  sa- 
vants ;    le  fantome  humain  et  le  principe  vital.  Paris,  1863.* 

Moeurs  et  pratiques  des  demons ;    ou,  Des  esprits  visiteurs.        Paris,  1864.* 

Grasse,    Johann    Georg    Theodor,     (Ed.)  :      Der    Sagenschatz    des     Konigreiches 

Sachsen.  Dresden,   1855. 
Graf,  A.:     (See  Teuscher,  R.) 

Graillot,   Henri :     Le  culte  de   Cybele,  mere  des  dieux,  a  Rome  et  dans   l'Empire 

roman.  Paris,    1912. 

Gramont-Lesparre,  A.  de :     Les  inconnus  de  la  biologie  deterministe.     Paris,  1914. 

Grange,   Lucie :     La   mission   du   nouveau-spiritualisme ;  lettres   de   l'esprit   Salem- 

Hermes.  Paris,   1896.* 

Prophetes  et  propheties.     fid.  par  la  direction  de  "La  Lumiere." 

Paris,  1883.* 
Granger,   Frank :     The  worship  of  the  Romans  viewed  in   relation  to  the  Roman 

temperament.  London,    1895. 

Grant,    Alexander    Henley :     Extraordinary    and    well-authenticated    dreams ;   1  by 

Frank  Seafield.  M.  A.    (pseud.)  London,   1867* 

The  literature  and  curiosities  of  dreams;  a  commonplace  book  of  specula- 
tions concerning  the  mystery  of  dreams  and  visions,  records  of  curious  and 
well-authenticated  dreams,  and  notes  of  interpretation  adopted  in  ancient 
and  modern  times;    by  Frank  Seafield,  M.  A.   (pseud. ).  London,  1865.* 

Grant,  Mrs.  Anne  MacVicar :     Essays  on  the  superstitions  of  the  Highlanders  of 

Scotland.  London,   1811.* 

Grant,  T. :     A  scientific  view  of  modern  spiritualism.  London,  1872  (?)* 

Grasset,   Joseph:     L'hypnotisme   et   la   suggestion.     3d   ed.  Paris,    1909. 

Introduction  physiologique  a  l'etude  de  la  philosophie.  Paris,   1908. 

■ Leqons  de  clinique  medicale.     4  vols  Montpellier,  1891-1903.* 

The  marvels  beyond  science  New  York,  1910. 


574  APPENDIX  E 

Grasset,  Joseph:  L'Occultisme  hier  et  aujourd'hui.  Tr.  as  "The  Marvels  beyond 
science,"   q.v. 

The  semi-insane  and  the  semi-responsible.     Tr.  by  S.  E.  Jelliffe. 

New  York,  1907. 

Graves,  Lucien  Chase :  The  natural  order  of  spirit ;  a  psychic  study  and  ex- 
perience. Boston,  1915.* 

Gray,  Robert  (Bishop  of  Bristol):  The  theory  of  dreams;  in  which  an  inquiry 
is  made  into  the  powers  and  faculties  of  the  human  mind  as  they  are  illus- 
trated in  the  most  remarkable  dreams  recorded  in  sacred  and  profane  his- 
tory. London,  1808.* 

The  great  psychological  crime ;  the  destructive  principle  of  nature  in  the  individ- 
ual life.     7th  ed.     By  author  of  "The  great  work."  Chicago,   1906. 

Great  religions  of  the  world,  by  Herbert  Giles,  and  others.  New  York,  1912. 

The  great  work ;  the  constructive  principle  of  nature  in  individual  life.  12  ed. 
by  author  of  "The  great  psychological  crime."  Chicago,   1907. 

Greatraks,  Valentine.     (See  Merrett,  Dr.  Christopher;     also  see  Kunckel,  Johann.) 

Green,  M.  W. :  Report  of  the  oral  discussion  between  Mr.  M.  W.  Green,  minis- 
ter of  the  church  of  Christ,  .  .  .  and  Mr.  Thomas  Walker,  the  young  spirit- 
ualistic  trance    medium.  Melbourne,    1878.* 

Green,  Samuel  Abbott:     Groton  in  the  witchcraft  times.  Groton,  Mass.,   1883. 

Greenwood,   Frederick :     Imagination   in  dreams  and   their  study. 

New  York,  1894* 

Gregor,    Adalbert :     Lehrbuch   der   psychiatrischen    Diagnostik.  Berlin,    1914. 

Leitfaden   der   experimentellen    Psychopathologie.  Berlin,    1910. 

Gregory,  William :     Animal  magnetism  ;    or,  Mesmerism  and  its  phenomena. 

London,   1909.* 

German    popular    prophecies.      (In    Blackstone's    Magazine,   vol.    67,    May 

1850;    in  Living  Age,  vol.  25:529).  Edinburgh,  1850. 

Letters  to  a  candid  inquirer,  on  animal  magnetism.  London,  1851.* 

Grey,    Sir   George :     Polynesian   mythology  and   ancient  traditional   history   of  the 

New  Zealand  race.     2d  ed.  Auckland,   1885. 

Gridley,  Josiah  A. :  Astounding  facts  from  the  spirit  world ;  witnessed  at  the 
house  of  J.  A.  Gridley,  Southampton,  Mass.,  by  a  circle  of  friends,  embrac- 
ing the  extremes  of  good  and  evil ;  the  great  doctrines  of  the  Bible,  such 
as  the  resurrection,  day  of  judgment,  Christ's  second  coming,  defended, 
and  unfolded  by  the  spirits,  with  many  hundreds  of  questions  answered 
from  the  same  source.  Southampton.   1854.* 

Griesinger,   Wilhelm :     Mental   pathology  and   therapeutics.  London,    1867. 

Grimard,  fidouard :     Une  echappee  sur  l'infini;    vivre,  mourir,  revivre. 

Paris,  1899.* 

Grimes,  J.  Stanley :  Great  discussion  of  modern  spiritualism  between  Prof.  J. 
Stanley   Grimes   and   Leo   Miller.  Boston,    i860.* 

Grimm,  Jacob  Ludwig  Karl :     Deutsche  Mythologie.    2.  Ausg.        Gottingen,  1843-44. 

Deutsche  Sagen ;    hrsg.  von  den  Briidern  Grimm.  Berlin,   1816. 

Teutonic  mythology.     Tr.  by  J.   S.   Stallybrass.     4  v.         London,   1882-88. 

Grinnell,   George   Bird:     Blackfoot   lodge  tales.  New  York,   1907. 

Pawnee  hero  tales.  New  York,  1904. 

Gross,  Hans  Gustav  Adolf:  Criminal  psychology;  a  manual  for  judges,  prac- 
titioners and  students.     Introduction  by  Jastrow.  Boston,  191 1. 

Kriminalpsychologie.     2.   Aufl.  Leipzig,   1905. 

Grossmann,    J.    (Ed.)  :     Die    Bedeutung    der    hypnotischen    Suggestion    als    Heil- 

mittel.  Berlin,   1894.* 


BOOKS    IN    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    LIBRARY  575 

Guazzo,  Francesco  Maria :  Compendivm  maleficarvm  ex  quo  nefandissima  in  genus 
humanum  opera  venefica,  ac  ad  ilia  vitanda  remedia  conspiciuntur.  Per 
fratrem  Franciscum  Mariam  Guaccium  ...  In  hac  autem  secunda  aeditione 
ab  eodem  authore  pulcherrimis  doctrinis  ditatum,  exemplis  auctum,  &  reme- 
dijs  locupletatum.  His  additus  est  exorcismus  potentissimus  ad  soluendum 
omne  opus  diabolicum ;    nee  non  modus  curandi  febricitantes. 

Mediolani,  1626* 

Legends  of  the  Rhine.  New  York,  1915. 

Myths  of  northern  lands,  narrated  with  special  reference  to  literature  and 

art.  New  York,  1895. 

Guevara,  Tomas :     Folklore  araucano.  Santiago  de  Chile,   1911. 

Guichot  y  Sierra,  Alejandro:     Supersticiones  populares,  recojidas  en  Andalucia  y 

comparadas  con  las  portuguesas.     (In  Folk-lore.)  London,  1883. 

Guidi,  Francesco:     I  misteri  del  moderno  spiritismo.  Milano,   1867.* 

Trattato  teorico-pratico  di   magnetismo  animale.  Milano,    1854.* 

Guiraudet,  Jules:     Y  a-t-il  une  vie  future?     Opinions  diverses  sur  ce  sujet,   re- 

cueilles  et  mises  en  ordre  par  un  Revenant.     2e  ed.  Paris,  1864.* 

Guldenstubbe,  Louis,  baron  de :  Pneumatologie  positive  et  experimentale ;  la 
realite  des  esprits  et  le  phenomene  merveilleux  de  leur  ecriture  directe, 
demontrees  par  le  baron  L.  de  Guldenstubbe.  Paris,  1857.* 

Guppy,  Samuel :  Mary  Jane ;  or,  Spiritualism  chemically  explained,  with  spirit 
drawings;  Also  essays  by,  and  ideas  (perhaps  erroneous)  of  "a  child  at 
school."  London,   1863.* 

Gurney,  Edmund:  Phantasms  of  the  living;  by  Edmund  Gurney,  Frederic  W.  H. 
Myers,   and   Frank   Podmore.  London,    1886.* 

Hab,   (pseud.).     (See  Grange,  Lucie.) 

Haddock,  Joseph  W. :  Somnolism  &  psycheism ;  or.  The  science  of  the  soul  and 
the  phenomena  of  nervation,  as  revealed  by  vital  magnetism  or  mesmerism, 
considered  physiologically  and  philosophically ;  with  notes  of  mesmeric  and 
psychical  experience.     2d  ed.,  enl.  London,   1851.* 

Haddon,  Alfred  Cort :     Magic  and  fetishism.  London,  1906. 

Haen,  Anton  de :     De  magia  liber.  Paris,  1777. 

De   miraculis   liber.  Paris,    1778.* 

Haldane,  John  Scott:     Mechanism,  life  and  personality.  London,   1914. 

Hall,  Alexander  Wilford :     The  problem  of  human  life.  New  York,  1883. 

Hall,  Bolton :     The  mastery  of  grief.  New  York,   1913.* 

Hall,  Frederic  Thomas :     The  pedigree  of  the  devil.  London,   1883.* 

Hall,  Granville   Stanley :     Adolescence ;    its  psychology.  New  York,   1004. 

Hall,    Ralph :     Trial   for   witchcraft   of   Ralph    Hall   and   Mary   his   wife,   at    New 

York,  October  2,   1665.     (In  The  documentary  history  of  the  state  of  New 

York,  by  E.  B.  O'Callaghan.  v.  4).  Albany,   1849-51. 

Hall,  Spencer  Timothy :     Mesmeric   experiences.  London,    1845.* 

Halle,  Johann  Samuel :     Magie ;    oder,  Die  Zauberkrafte  der  Natur.     4  vols. 

Berlin,  1784-86.* 
Halleck,  Reuben  Post :     Psychology  and  psychic  culture.  New  York,  1895. 

Haller,   Joseph    (Ed.):     Altspanische   Sprichworter   und   Sprichworterische   Reden- 

sarten  aus  den  Zeiten  Cervantes.     2  vols.  Regensburg,  1883. 

Halliday,   W.   R. :     Greek   divination.  London,   1913. 

Halphide,   Alvan  Cavala :     The  psychic  and  psychism.  Chicago,   1901.* 

Haltrich,  Joseph   (Ed.)  :     Deutsche  Volksmarchen  aus  dem   Sachsenlande   im  Sie- 

benbiirgen  gesammelt.     2.  Aufl.  Hermannstadt,  1877. 

3.  Aufl.  Wien,  1882. 


576  APPENDIX  E 

Haltrich,  Joseph :     Zur  Volkskunde  der  Siebenbiirger  Sachsen.  Wien,    1885. 

Hamilton,  Mary  M.  A. :  Incubation,  or  the  cure  of  diseases  in  pagan  temples 
and  Christian  churches.  London,   1906.* 

Hammarberg,   Carl :     Studien   liber   Klinik   und   Pathologie   der   Idiotie. 

Upsala,   1895. 
Hammond,  William  Alexander :     On  certain  conditions  of  nervous  derangement ; 
somnambulism,    hypnotism,    hysteria,    hysteriod    affections,    etc. 

New  York,  1883.* 

Sleep  and  its  derangements.  Philadelphia,   1869.* 

A  treatise  on  insanity  in  its  medical  relations.  New  York,  1883. 

Handbuch    der    Psychiatrie ;     hrsg.    von    G.    Aschaffenburg.      Allgemeiner    Teil : 

Abt.  2-s;  Leipzig,  1912-15. 

Spezieller  Teil :     Abt.  1-6.  Leipzig,  1911-15. 

Hansen,  Joseph :     Quellen   und   Untersuchungen   zur   Geschichte   des   Hexenwahns 

und  der  Hexenverfolgung  im  Mittelalter.  Bonn,  1901.* 

Zauberwahn,   Inquisition,   und   Hexenprozess   im  Mittelalter   und   die   Ent- 

stehung   der   grossen   Hexenverfolgung.  Munchen,    1900.* 

Hardie,  William  Ross:  Lectures  on  classical  subjects;  with  a  chapter  on  The 
supernatural   in   ancient   poetry  and   story.  New   York,    1903. 

Hardinge,  Emma.     (See  Britten,  Mrs.  Emma  Hardinge.) 

Hardy,  Thomas  John :     The  religious  instinct.  New  York,   1913. 

Hare,   Augustus   William :     Guesses   at   truth.  London,    1905.* 

Hare,  Robert :  Experimental  investigation  of  the  spirit  manifestations,  demon- 
strating the  existence  of  spirits  and  their  communion  with  mortals.  Doc- 
trine of  the  spirit  world  respecting  heaven,  hell,  morality,  and  God ;  also, 
the  influence  of  Scripture  in  the  morals  of  Christians.  New  York,  1856.* 

Harnack,   Adolph :     History  of  dogma.     Tr.  by   Buchanan.  Boston,   1898-1903. 

Harris,  David  Fraser:     Nerves.  New  York,  1913. 

Harris,  John:     Inference  from  haunted  houses  and  haunted  men.       London,  1901.* 

Harrison.  William  Henry :     Spirits  before  our  eyes.     v.  I.  London,   1879* 

Hart,  Bernard :     The  psychology  of  insanity.  New  York,  1912. 

Hart,  Eriit-st   A. :     Hypnotism,  mesmerism  and  the  new  witchcraft. 

New  York,  1S96. 

Hartenberg,  Paul :     Psychologie  des  neurastheniques.  Paris,  1908. 

Hartland,  Edwin  Sidney :  The  legend  of  Perseus ;  a  study  of  tradition  in  story, 
custom  and  belief.     3  vols.  London,   1894-96.* 

Hartmann,  Karl  Robert  Eduard  von :  Die  Geisterhypothese  des  Spiritismus  und 
seine  Phantome.  Leipzig,   1891.* 

Der  Spiritismus.     2.  Aufl.  Leipzig,  1898.* 

Harvey,   W.   Britton :     Science  and  the  soul.      (Photos  .of  noted   spiritualists   and 

of  thoughts.)      1st  ed.  Melbourne,  1908.* 

2d  ed.  Melbourne,  1908.* 

3d  ed.  Melbourne,  1910.* 

Wonders   never  cease.  Melbourne,  1910.* 

Hasbruck,   Stephen    (Pseud.).     (See   Smith,   P.   Mintern.) 

Hatch,  David   Patterson :     Scientific  occultism.  Los  Angeles,    1905. 

Some  more  philosophy  of  the  hermetics.  Los  Angeles,  1898. 

Some  philosophy  of  the  hermetics.  Los  Angeles,  1898. 

Haupt,   Karl :     Sagenbuch   der  Lausitz.     2  v.   in   I.  Leipzig,    1862-63. 

Haynes,   Edmund   Sidney  Pollock :     The  belief  in  personal  immortality. 

London,  1913.* 


BOOKS    IN    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    LIBRARY  577 

Hazard,   Thomas   Robinson :     An  examination   of   the   Bliss   imbroglio. 

Boston,   1878.* 

Mediums    and    mediumship.  London,    187 — .* 

Head,   Henry:     Certain  mental  changes  that  accompany  visceral   disease.      (From 

Brain).  London,  1901. 

Headlam,  Arthur  Cayley :     The  miracles  of  the  New  Testament.         London,  1914. 

Healy,  William:     Mental  conflicts  and  misconduct.  Boston,  1917. 

and  Mary  Tenney :     Pathological  lying,  accusation,  and  swindling. 

Boston,  1915. 
Heaton,  James:     The  extraordinary  affliction,  and  gracious  relief  of  a  little  boy; 

supposed  to  be  the  effects  of  spiritual  agency.  Plymouth,  1822* 

■ Farther    observations    on    demoniac    possession,    and    animadversions    on 

some  of  the   curious  arts   of  superstition,  etc.  Frome,   1822.* 

Hecker,  John :     Scientific  basis  of  education  demonstrated.  New  York,  1867. 

Hecker,  Justus  Friedrich  Karl :     The  epidemics  of  the  middle  ages.     Tr.  by  B.  G. 

Babington.      (In   Sydenham  Publications,  vol.  2.)  London,   1844. 

Reprint.  London,    1846. 

Heidenhain,   Rudolf   Peter   Heinrich :     Hypnotism,   or  animal   magnetism.     Tr.   by 

Woolridge ;     preface  by  G.  J.  Romanes.  London,  1906.* 

Hellpach,   Willy   Hugo :     Die  geopsychischen   Erscheinungen ;    Wetter,  Klima  und 

Landschaft  in  ihrem  Einfluss  auf  das  Seelenleben.  Leipzig,  1911. 

Die   Grenzwissenschaften   der   Psychologie ;    die  biologischen   und  soziolo- 

gischen  Grundlagen  der  Seelenforschung,  vornehmlich  fur  die  Vertreter  der 
Geisteswissenchaften  und  Padagogik  dargestellt.  Leipzig,  1902. 

Grundlinien  einer  Psychologie  der  Hysteric  Leipzig,   1904. 

Hellwig,     Bernhard :     Die   vier   Temperamente   bei    Erwachsenen ;    eine   Anleitung 

zur  Selbst-  und  Menschenkenntnis  und  ein  praktischer  Fiihrer  und  Ratgeber 
im  Umgange  mit  der  Welt.     4.  Aufl.  Paderborn,  1899. 

Die  vier  Temperamente  bei   Kindcrn.     6.  Aufl.  Paderborn,   1897. 

Hellwig,  Ernst   Paul   Heinrich   Karl :     Zur  psychologie  des  Aberglaubens. 

Elberfeld,   191 1. 

Henderson,  George:     Survivals  in  belief  among  the  Celts.  Glasgow,  191 1.* 

Henhofer,   Aloys :      Christliches   Glaubensbekenntniss   des   Pfarrer's    Henhofer  von 

Muhlhausen.     2.  Aufl.  Heidelberg,  1824.* 

Das  Henhofersche  sogenannte  christliche  Glaubensbekenntniss,  von  G...r. 

Rotweil,  1824* 
Henin  de  Cuvillers,  fitienne  Felix,  Baron  d' :     Le  magnetisme  eclaire ;    ou  Intro- 
duction aux  Archives  du  magnetisme  animal.  Paris,  1820.* 
Henke,  Frederick   Goodrich :     A   study   in   the  psychology  of  ritualism. 

Chicago,  1910. 

Hennig,   Richard:     Der  moderne   Spuk-   und   Geisterglaube ;    eine  Kritik  und  Er- 

klarung  der  spiritistischen   Phanomene;    mit   einem  Vorwort,  von  Dr.   Max 

soir.  Hamburg,  1906.* 

Wunder    und    Wissenschaft ;     eine    Kritik    und    Erklarung    der    okkulten 

Phanomene.  Hamburg,   1905. 

Henry,  Charles :  Psycho-biologie  et  energetique ;  essai  sur  un  principe  de 
methodes  intuitives  de  calcul.     (Bull.  Inst.  Gen.  Psy.)  Paris,  1909. 

Sensation  et  energie.  Paris,  191 1. 

Henry.    T.    Shekleton :     Spookland ;     a    record    of   research    and    experiment    in    a 

much-talked-of  realm  of  mystery.  Chicago,  1902. 

Henry,  Victor :     Le  langage  martien ;    etude  analytique  de  la  genese  d'une  langue 

dans   un   cas   de  glossolalie  somnambulique.  Paris,    1901.* 


578  APPENDIX  E 

Hensel,  Gottfried:     Abbildung  der  Wohnung  Gottes  im  Menschen.     Leipzig,  1713.* 
Henzen,   Wilhelm :     Ueber   die   Traume   in   der   altnordischen    Sagaliteratur. 

Leipzig,  1890. 
Hermes,  Trimegistus :     Hermes  Trimegiste.     Tr.  par  L.  Menard.     2e  ed. 

Paris,   1867. 
Hermon,   Harry:     Hellerism ;     second-sight   mystery;     supernatural   vision   or   sec- 
ond-sight;    what   is    it?   a   mystery;     a   complete    manual    for   teaching   this 
peculiar  art.  Boston,    1884.* 

Herrick,   Clarence   Luther :     Metaphysics   of  a   naturalist ;     philosophical   and   psy- 
chological fragments.     {Bull,  of  the  Scientific  Laboratories  of  Denison   Uni- 
versity.    Ed.  by  Frank  Carney.)  Granville,  1910. 
Hesse,    Johann    Heinrich    Gottlieb    (Ed.)  :     Kleine    Denkspriiche    fur    die    unteren 
Klassen  in  Burger-  und  Landschulen.     2.  Ausg.  Leipzig,  1817. 
Heusinger,   E. :     Sagen   und   Ueberlieferungen  aus  den   Sachsenlandern. 

Leipzig,   1856. 
Heysinger,   I.  W. :     Spirit  and  matter  before  the  bar  of  modern  science. 

London,    1910.* 
Hibbert-Ware,   Samuel :     Sketches   of   the   philosophy   of   apparitions ;    or,   An   at- 
tempt to  trace  such  illusions  to  their  physical  causes.     2d  ed. 

Edinburgh,  1825.* 
Hill,  John  Arthur :     New  evidences  in  psychical  research ;    a  record  of  investiga- 
tions, with  selected  examples  of  recent  S.  P.  R.  results ;    with  an  introduc- 
tion by  Sir  Oliver  Lodge.  London,   191 1.* 

Religion   and   modern   psychology ;    a   study  of  present   tendencies,  partic- 
ularly the  religious  implications  of  the  scientilic  belief  in  survival. 

London,  iqi  1  .* 

Spiritualism  and  psychical  research.  London,  1913.* 

Hirsch,    Max:     Hypnotismus    und    Suggestivtherapie;     ein    kurzes    Lehrbuch    fur 

Aerzte  und  Studierende.     Neubearb.  von  L.  Hirschlaff.  Leipzig,  1905. 

Hirsch,  William  :     Genius  and  degeneration.  New  York,  1896. 

Was   ist   Suggestion   und   Hypnotismus?  Berlin,    1896* 

A   history   of  the   recent   developments   in   spiritual   manifestations,   in   the   city  of 

Philadelphia.  Philadelphia,   1851* 

Hitchcock,    Clara    M. :      The    psychology    of    expectation.      (Thesis,    Ph.D.,    Yale 

University.)  New  York,  1903. 

Hitschmann,   Edward :     Freud's   theories   of   the   neuroses.     Tr.   by   C.    R.    Payne. 

New  York,  1913. 
Hobhouse,   Leonard  Trelawney :     Development  and  purpose ;    an  essay   towards  a 
philosophy  of  evolution.  London,  1913. 

Hodgson,  Shadworth  H. :     Time  and  space ;    a  metaphysical  essay.       London,  1865. 
Hoffman,   Professor   (Pseud.).     (See  Lewis,  Angelo  John.) 
Hoffmann,   Franz :     Die   Grundziige  der   Physik   des   Okkultismus. 

Strassburg,  1908.* 
Hoisholt,  Andrew  William :     An  address ;    the  commitment  in  California  of  per- 
sons alleged  to  be  insane.  Sacramento,  1896. 
Holland,  Charles:     Spiritual  or  magnetic  forces.                                New  York,  1882.* 
Hollander,  Bernard :     The  first  signs  of  insanity,  their  prevention  and   treatment. 

London,  1912. 

Hypnotism  and   suggestion  in   daily   life,  education,   and  medical   practice. 

New  York,   1910. 
Holt,  Edwin  Bissell :     The  concept  of  consciousness.  New  York,  1914. 

Holt,  Henry:     On  the  cosmic  relations.    2  vols.  Boston,  1915.* 


BOOKS    IN    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    LIBRARY 


579 


Home,  Daniel  Dunglas :  Incidents  in  my  life,  with  an  introduction  by  Judge 
Edmonds.  New  York,  1874.* 

Le  medium,  D.  D.  Home,  sa  vie  et  son  caractere ;    d'apres  des  documents 

authentiques   par   Louis   Gardy.  Geneve,    189 — .* 

Home,  Mrs.  Daniel  Dunglas:     The  gift  of  D.  D.  Home.  London,  1890* 

Hopf,  Ludwig^  Thierorakel  und  Orakelthiere  in  alter  und  neuer  Zeit ;  eine  eth- 
nologische-zoologische   Studie.  Stuttgart,   1888. 

Hopkins,  Albert  A.:  Magic;  stage  illusions  and  scientific  diversions,  including 
trick   photography.  New   York,    1901. 

Hopkins,  Nevil  Monroe :  Twentieth  century  magic  and  the  construction  of  mod- 
ern magical  apparatus ;  with  the  introduction  of  new  experiments,  mechan- 
ical, chemical,  electrical.  Philadelphia,  1898.* 

Horn,  Mrs.  Susan  G. :  The  next  world ;  56  communications  from  eminent  his- 
torians, authors,  legislators,  etc.,  now  in  the  spirit-life.  London,  1890.* 

Home,  Herman  Harrell :     Free  will  and  human  responsibility.       New  York,  1912. 

Horsley,  Victor  Alexander  Haden :  On  substitution  as  a  means  of  restoring 
nerve  function  considered  with  reference  to  cerebral  localization.  (In 
Lancet.)  London,   1884. 

Houdin,  Robert.     (See  Robert-Houdin,  Jean  Eugene.) 

Houdini,  Harry:     Mein  Training  und  meine  Tricks.  Leipzig,   1909. 

Hough,  Sabin :     Remarks  of  the  'revelations'  of  A.  J.  Davis,  clairvoyant. 

Columbus,  Ohio,   1847  (?)* 

Houghton,  Georgiana :  Chronicles  of  the  photographs  of  spiritual  beings  &  phe- 
nomena invisible  to  the  material  eye.  London,  1882.* 

Houghton,  Herbert  Pierrepont :  Moral  significance  of  animals  as  indicated  in 
Greek  proverbs.  Amherst,   Mass.,   1915. 

Houssaye,  Arsene :     Des  destinees  de  l'ame.  Paris,   1870.* 

Howells,  William  Dean :     The  undiscovered  country.  Boston,   1908. 

Howitt,  William  :     The  history  of  the  supernatural.  Philadelphia,   1863. 

Hubbell,  Walter:  The  great  Amherst  mystery;  a  true  narrative  of  the  super- 
natural. New  York,  1888.* 

Huber,  John  Bessner :  The  Medical  News'  investigation  into  the  claims  of  Chris- 
tian science.  Philadelphia,  1899. 

Hude,  Mrs.  Anna :     The  evidence  for  communication  with  the  dead. 

London,   1913.* 

Hudson,  Thomas  Jay :  Law  of  psychic  phenomena ;  a  working  hypothesis  for  the 
systematic   study   of   hypnotism,   spiritism,   mental    therapeutics,   etc. 

Chicago,  1893. 

Hueffer,  Oliver  Madox :     The  book  of  witches.  London,  1908.* 

Hull,  Moses :  Encyclopedia  of  Biblical  spiritualism ;  a  concordance  of  the  pas- 
sages of  the  Scriptures  which  prove  or  imply  spiritualism.       Chicago,   1895. 

Hulme,  Frederick  Edward :     Natural  history ;    lore  and  legend.  London,  1895. 

Huntley,  Mrs.  Florence  (Ed.).  (See  The  great  psychological  crime;  the  destruc- 
tive principle  of  nature  in  individual  life.) 

Harmonics  of  evolution:     the  philosophy  of  individual  life.     12th   ed. 

Chicago,   1913. 

Hutchinson,  Francis,  (Bishop  of  Down  and  Connor)  :  An  historical  essay  con- 
cerning witchcraft.     2d  ed.  London,  1720.* 

Hutchinson,  Horatio  Gordon  :  Dreams  and  their  meanings ;  with  many  accounts 
of  experiences  sent  by  correspondents  and  two  chapters  contributed  mainly 
from  the  journals  of  the  Psychical  Research  Society  on  telepathic  and  pre- 
monitory dreams.  London.   1001.* 


580  APPENDIX  E 

Hutchison,  Alice  Marion :     Hypnotism  and  self-education.  London,  1914* 

Huvelin,  Paul:     Magie  et  droit  individual.     (In  Annie  sociologique,  v.   10.) 

Paris,  1907. 

Hyslop,  James  Hervey :     Borderland  of  psychical  research.  Boston,  1906.* 

Enigmas  of  psychical   research.  Boston,   1906.* 

Problems  of  philosophy;    or,  Principles  of  epistemology  and  metaphysics. 

New  York,  1905. 

Psychical  research  and  survival.  London,  1913.* 

Psychical   research   and   the   resurrection.  Boston,    1908.* 

Science  and  a   future   life.  Boston,   1905. 

Hyslop,  Theo.  B. :  Mental  physiology,  especially  in  its  relation  to  mental  dis- 
orders. London,  1895. 

Ingalese,  Richard:  History  and  power  of  the  mind.                        New  York,  1903. 

Ingram,   John   H. :  The   haunted   homes   and   family   traditions   of   Great    Britain. 

3d  ed.  London,   1886.* 

Ireland,  William  Wotherspoon :  Mental  affections  of  children;  idiocy,  imbecility, 
and  insanity.  London,   1900. 

Iverach.  James :     Theism  in  the  light  of  present  science  and  philosophy. 

New  York,   1809. 

Izett,  James:     Maori  lore.  Wellington,  1904. 

Jacks,  Lawrence  Pearsall :     All  men  are  ghosts.  New  York,  1913.* 

Jacoby,  George  W. :     Suggestion  and  psychotherapy.  New  York,   1912. 

Jacolliot.  Louis:  Occult  science  in  India  and  among  the  ancients;  with  an  ac- 
count of  their  mystic  initiations  and  the  history  of  spiritism.  Tr.  by  W. 
L    Felt.  London,   1884.* 

Le  spiritisme  dans  le  monde.  Paris,  1879.* 

Jachdc,    Walter :      Religion,    Schicksalgiaube,   Vorahnungen,   Traume,    Geister,   und 

Ratsel  in  den  englisch-schottischen  Volksballaden.  Halle,  1905. 

Jamblichus    (of  Chalcis)  :     Index  eorum  quae  hoc  in  libro  habentur;     Iamblichus 

De   Mysteriis.  Venetiis,    1516.* 

James,  Montague  Rhodes :     Ghost-stories  of  an  antiquary.  London,  1912.* 

James,  Thomas   P. :     The   mystery  of   Edwin  Drood ;    complete.     Part   second  by 

the   spirit-pen   of   Charles   Dickens,  through   Thomas   P.  James. 

Brattleboro,    Vt.,    1873.* 

Tames    William :     Human   immortality ;    two  supposed  objections   to  the   doctrine. 
J'         '  Boston,   1899. 
Memories   and   studies.      (Ch.   vii.  Frederick   Myers'   services   to   psychol- 
ogy;   ch.   viii.  Final  impressions  of  a   psychical  researcher.)     London,   191 1. 

Principles  of  psychology.     2  vols.  New  York,  1800. 

Varieties  of  religious  experience ;    a  study  in  human  nature. 

New  York,   1902. 

The  will  to  believe.  New  York,  1899. 

Janet,    Pierre    Marie   Felix:     L'automatisme   psychologique.  Paris,    1889. 
Letat   mental   des   hysteriques ;    les   stigmates   mentaux.     Preface   de   M. 

le  Charcot.  Paris.   IQ"* 

Der  Geisteszustand  der  Hysterischen.  Leipzig,  1894. 

The  major  symptoms  of  hysteria;    15  lectures  given  in  the  Medical  School 

of  Harvard  University.  New  York,   1907. 
The  mental  state  of  hystericals;    a  study  of  mental  stigmata  and  mental 

accidents.     Preface  by  Professor  Charcot.    Tr.  by  Caroline  Rollin  Corson. 

New  York,  loot. 


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Janet,  Pierre  Marie  Felix  :     Les  Nevroses.  Paris,  1909. 

Nevroses  et  idees  fixees.  Paris,  1904-8. 

Les  obsessions  et  la  psychasthenic    2e  ed.    2  vols.  Paris,  1908-1911.* 

Jaspers,   Karl :     Allgemeine   Psychopathologie.  Berlin,   I9!3- 

Jastrow,  Joseph :     Fact  and  fable  in  psychology.  Boston,  1900. 

The  subconscious.  Boston,   1906. 

Jastrow,   Morris:     Hebrew   and   Babylonian  traditions.  New  York,   1914. 

The    religion   of    Babylonia   and   Assyria.  Boston,    1898. 

The  study  of  religion.  London,  1902. 

Jeanne    des    Anges,    Sister,    originally    Jeanne    de    Belcier :      Soeur    Jeanne    des 

Anges  .  .  .  Paris,  1886* 

Jewett,   Pendie   L. :     Spiritualism  and  charlatanism;    or,   the  tricks  of  the  media. 

New  York,   1873. 

Joel,  Karl :     Der  freie  Wille,  eine  Entwicklung  in  Gesprachen.       Miinchen,   1908. 
Johnson,   William  Woolsey :     Theory  of  errors   and  method   of  least  squares. 

New  York,   1905. 
Joire,    Paul :     Les    phenomenes    psychiques    et    supernormaux.  Paris,    1909.* 

Jollivet,  Castelot  F. :     La  synthese  de  l'or;    l'unite  et  la  transmutation  de  la  ma- 

tiere.  Paris,    1909.* 

Jolly,     Friedrich :       Hypnotismus     und     Hysterie.       (In     Munchener    medicinische 

Wochenschrift,    1894.)  Miinchen,    1894. 

Joly,  Jules   Charles   Henri :     L'imagination  ;    etude  psychologique.  Paris,   1885. 

Psychologie  des   grands   hommes.  Paris,   1891. 

The  psychology  of  the  saints.     Preface  and  notes  by  G.  Tyrrell. 

New  York,   1913.* 

Jones,  Amanda  Theodosia :  A  psychic  autobiography.  Introduction  by  James  H. 
Hyslop.  New   York,    1910.* 

Jones,    Ernest :     Papers    on   psychoanalysis.  London,    1913. 

Jones,  William :  Credulities  past  and  present ;  including  the  sea  and  seamen, 
miners,  amulets  and  talismans,  rings,  word  and  letter  divination,  numbers, 
trials,  exorcising  and  blessing  of  animals,  birds,  eggs,  and  luck. 

London,    1880.* 

Jordan,  David  Starr:     The  religion  of  a  sensible  American.  Boston,  1912. 

Jordan,  Furneaux :  Character  as  seen  in  body  and  parentage ;  with  notes  on 
education,  marriage,  change  in  character,  and  morals.  London,   1896. 

Jorgensen,  Johannes :     Lourdes.     Tr.  by  Ingeborg  Lund.  London,   1914.* 

Joris,  David :  'T  Wonder-boeck ;  waer  in  dat  van  der  vverldt  aen  versloten 
gheopenbaert  is.  .  .  .  Opt  nieuw  ghecorrigeert  unde  vermeerdert  by  den 
autheur  selue.  I55L* 

Judson,  Katharine  Berry:  Myths  and  legends  of  California  and  the  Old  South- 
west. Chicago,  1912. 

Jung,  Carl  Gustav :  Psychology  of  the  unconscious ;  a  study  of  the  transforma- 
tions and  symbolisms  of  the  libido ;  a  contribution  to  the  history  of  the 
evolution  of  thought.  Authorized  translation,  with  introduction,  by  Beatrice 
M.  Hinkle.  New  York,  1916. 

The  theory  of  psychoanalysis.  New  York,  1915.* 

Zur  Psychologie  und  Pathologie  sogenannter  occulter  Phanomene. 

Leipzig,   1902. 

Jung-Stilling,  Johann  Friedrich:     Theorie  der  Geisterkunde.  Stuttgart,   1832.* 

Jurieu,  Pierre :  The  reflections  of  the  reverend  and  learned  Monsieur  Jurieu, 
upon  the  strange  and  miraculous  exstasies  of  Isabel  Vincent,  the  shepherd- 
ess of  Saov  in  Dauphine  .  .  .  London,  1689.* 


582  APPENDIX  E 

Kabbala  Unveiled.     (See  Cabala.) 

Kandinsky,   Victor:     Kritische   und  klinische   Betrachtungen  im  Gebiete   der   Sin- 

nestauschungen ;    I.  und  2.  Studie.  Berlin,  1885. 

Kant,  Immanuel:     Dreams  of  a  spirit-seer,  illustrated  by  dreams  of  metaphysics. 

Tr.   by   Goerwitz.  New  York,   1900.* 

Traume  eines  Geistersehers,  erlautert  durch  Traume  der  Metaphysik. 

Leipzig,  i88o(?). 

Karadja,  Mary,  Princess :     The  esoteric  meaning  of  the  seven  sacraments. 

London,   1910. 

Towards  the  light ;    a  mystic  poem.  London,   1908. 


Kardec,  Allan  (Pseud.).     (See  Rivail,  Hippolyte  L.  D.) 

Keary,  Charles  Francis:     The  pursuit  of  reason.  Cambridge,   1910. 

Kennedy,   Patrick:     Legendary  fictions  of  the   Irish  Celts.  London,   1891.* 

Kent,   Grace   Helen :     A   study  of  association   in   insanity.  Baltimore,   1910. 

Kepler    Johann :     Joannis  Kepleri  astronomi  opera  omnia.     Edidit  dr.  Ch.  Frisch. 

Frankfurt,   1858-1871* 

Kerner,  Justinus  Andreas  Christian :  The  seeress  of  Prevorst ;  being  revelations 
concerning  the  inner-life  of  man,  and  the  inter-diffusion  of  a  world  of  spir- 
its in  the  one  we  inhabit.  Communicated  by  Justinus  Kerner.  From  the 
German  by  Mrs.  Crowe.  London,  1845.* 

Kernot,  Henry :  Bibliotheca  diabolica  ;  being  a  choice  selection  of  the  most  val- 
uable books  relating  to  the  devil;  his  origin,  greatness,  and  influence; 
comprising  the  most  important  works  on  the  devil,  satan,  demons,  hell, 
hell-torments,  magic,  witchcraft,  sorcery,  divination,  superstitions,  angels, 
ghosts,  etc.,  etc.,  with  some  curious  volumes  on  dreams  and  astrology;  in 
two  parts,  pro  and  con,  serious  and  humorous ;  chronologically  arranged 
with   notes,  quotations,  and   proverbs,  and  a  copious   index. 

New  York,  1874 •* 

Kiesewetter,  Karl :     Faust   in  der  Geschichte  und  Tradition.  Leipzig,   1893. 

Geschichte   des   neureren   Occultismus.  Leipzig,   1909.* 

King,  Mrs.  Anna  Bonus:  "Clothed  with  the  sun,"  being  the  book  of  the  illumina- 
tions of  Anna  Bonus  Kingsford.     Ed.  by  Edward  Maitland.     London,   1889.* 

King,  John  H. :     The  supernatural ;    its  origin,  nature,  and  evolution. 

London,  1892.* 
Kingsbury,  George  Chadwick:  The  practice  of  hypnotic  suggestion.  Bristol,  1891.* 
Kingsford,  Mrs.  Anna  Bonus:     Dreams  and  dream  stories.  New  York,  1889.* 

Kingsley,  J.  S. :     Salem  witchcraft.      (In  Nebraska  State  Historical  Society  Tran- 
sactions, v.  3.)  Lincoln,   Neb,    1892. 
Kingsley,  Mary  H. :     Travels  in  West  Africa.  London,   1897. 

West  African  studies.  London,   1899. 

Kircher,  Athanasius :     Athanasii  Kircheri  .  .  .  mundus  subterraneus ;    in  xii  libros 

digestus.  Amstelodami,   1678.* 

Kirchner,     Raphael     Eugen :     Schlummernde     Fahigkeiten     und    geheime     Seelen- 

krafte ;  Anleitung  zur  Erweckung  und  Benutzung  psychischer.      Berlin,  1906.* 

Wirkung  in  die  Feme  ;    die  Lehre  von  der  Telepathic  Leipzig,   1908. * 

Klee    Gotthold  Ludwig:     Sieben   Biicher   deutscher   Volkssagen.     Giitersloh,    18S5. 

Zwanzig  deutsche  Volksbikher  fur  Jung  und  Alt  wiedererzahlt. 

Giitersloh.  1881. 
Klemm,  Otto:     Geschichte  der  Psychologie.  Leipzig,  191 1. 

Klinckowstroem,     Carl     Ludwig     Friedrich     Otto,     Graf    von :     Bibliographie     der 

Wiinschelrute.  Miinchen,   ion. 


,  BOOKS    IN    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    LIBRARY  583 

Das  Kloster;  weltlich  und  geistlich.  Meist  aus  der  altern  deutschen  Volks-, 
Wunder-,  Curiositaten-,  und  vorzugsweise  komischen  Literatur;  zur  Kul- 
tur-  und  Sittengeschichte  in  Wort  und  Bild.  Stuttgart,  1849. 

Knortz,  Karl:  Hexen,  Teufel,  und  Blocksbergspuk  in  Geschichte,  Sage  und  Lite- 
ratur. Annaberg,  n.  d. 

Knowlson,  Thomas  Sharper:     The  education  of  the  will;    a  popular  study. 

London,   1913* 

The  origins  of  popular  superstitions  and  customs.  London,  1910.* 

Kohler,    Reinhold :     Kleinere   Schriften.     3   vols.  Weimar,    1900. 

Kohler,  Walther :     Geist  und  Freiheit.  Tubingen,   1914. 

Kostyleff,  Nicholas :  Le  mecansime  cerebral  de  la  pensee.  Paris,  1914. 
Kraepelen,  Emil :     Clinical  psychiatry.     Adapted  by  Diefendorf.     New  York,  1907. 

General  paresis.    Tr.  by  J.  W.  Moore.  New  York,  1913. 

Lectures   on  clinical  psychiatry.  London,    1913. 

Psychiatrie,  ein  Lehrbuch  fur  Studierende  und  Aerzte.    2  vols.     ed.  7. 

Leipzig,  1903-04. 

ed.  8.  Leipzig,   1909-15- 

Ueber  Sprachstorgungen  in  Traume.  Leipzig,  1906. 

Krafft-Ebing,  Richard  von :     An  experimental  study  in  the  domain  of  hypnotism. 

Tr.  by  C.  G.  Chaddock.  New  York,  1889. 

Lehrbuch  der  Psychiatrie  auf  klinischer  Grundlage  fur  practische  Aerzte 

und  Studierende.  Stuttgart,  1890. 

Die    Sinnesdelirien;     ein    Versuch    ihrer    physio-psychologischen    Begriin- 

dung  und  klinischen   Darstellung.  Erlangen,    1864. 

Krebs,   Stanley  Le   Fevre :    The  law  of  suggestion.  Chicago,   1906. 

Krijanowsky,  Mile.  W. :  L'Abbaye  des  benedictins ;  oeuvre  medianimique ;  die- 
tee  par  l'esprit  de  J.  W.  Rochester.  Paris,  1902* 

fipisode  de  la  vie  de  Tibere ;    oeuvre  medianimique ;    dictee  par  l'esprit  de 

J.  W.  Rochester.     Medium,  Mile.  W.  K.  Paris,  1885.* 

Herculanum ;     roman    de    l'epoque    romaine,   dicte   par   l'esprit    de   J.    W. 

Rochester.  Paris,    1889* 

Le   pharon   Mernephtah,   dicte   par   l'esprit   de   J.   W.    Rochester. 

Paris,  1888.* 
Kunckel,  Johann :     Ars  vitraria  experimentalis.  Niirnberg,  1743. 

Ladd,  George  Trumbull:  What  can  I  know?  An  inquiry  into  truth,  its  nature, 
the  means  of  its  attainment,  and  its  relations  to  the  practical  life. 

New  York,  1914. 

Ladrague,   A.:     Sciences   secretes.  Moscow,   1870. 

Laehr,  Heinrich:     Die  Literatur  der  Psychiatrie,  Neurologie  und  Psychologie  von 

1459-1799-     3  vols.  Berlin,  1900. 

Laffan,    Mrs.    Bertha   Jane    Grundy:     Dreams   made   verity;    stories,   essays,   and 

memories.  London,  1910.* 

Lafontaine,   Charles :     Memoires   d'un   magnetiseur.     2   vols.  Paris,   1866.* 

Lafuente  y  Zamalloa,  Modesto :  La  brujeria  en  Barcelona.  3d  ed.  Barcelona,  n.  d. 
Lampe,    Martin :      Das    Problem    der    Willensfreiheit   bei    Lipps,    Euchen,   Windel- 

bund,  v.  Hartmann  und  Wundt.  Berlin,  1907. 

Lang,  Andrew :    The  book  of  dreams  and  ghosts.  London,  1897.* 

Cock  Lane  and  common  sense.  London,   1894.* 

Custom  and  myth.  London,   1910.* 

Magic  and  religion.  London,  1901* 


584  APPENDIX  E 

Lang,  Andrew  :     The  maid  of  France ;    being  the  story  of  the  life  and  death  of 
Jeanne  d'Arc.  London,  1908. 

The   making   of   religion.  New   York,    1898. 

Psychical  research  of  the  century.     (In  the  Annual  Report  of  the  Smith- 
sonian Institution.)  Washington,   1900. 

Langdon,   Frank   Warren:     The   aphasias   and  their  medico-legal   relations. 

Norwalk,  Ohio,  1898. 

Lange,   Friederick   Albert:     Geschichte   des   Materialismus   und   Kritik   seiner   Be- 

deutung  in  der  Gegenwart.     2  vols.  Leipzig,   1908. 

History  of  materialism  and  criticism  of  its  present  importance.     Tr.  from 

the   German   by  Thomas.     3   vols.  London,    1877- 1881. 

Langland,  William:     The  vision  of  William  concerning  Piers  the  Plowman.     Ed. 

by  Walter  Skeat.  Oxford,   1906. 

Lankester,  Edwin  Ray  :     The  kingdom  of  man.  London,  1907. 

Laplace,    Pierre    Simon :     Philosophical    essay   on    probabilities.      Tr.    by   Truscott 

and  Emory.  London,   1902. 

Lapponi,  Giuseppe :     Hypnotism  and  spiritism ;    a  critical  and  medical  study.     Tr. 

by  Mrs.   Philip  Gibbs.  London,  1907.* 

Lasserre,   Henri :     Our   Lady  of  Lourdes.     Tr.   from   the   French.     7th  ed. 

New  York,   1885. 
Lasswitz,  Carl  Theodor  Victor  Kurd :     Seelen  und  Ziele ;    Beitrage  zum  Weltver- 

standnis.  Leipzig,  1908. 

Lasurski,  A.:     Ueber  das   Studium  der   Individualist.      (In   Padagogische   Mono- 

graphien,  xiv  Band).  Leipzig,  1912. 

Latimer,  Charles:     The  divining-rod;    virgula  divinabaculus  divinatorius.     (Water- 
witching.)  Cleveland,   1876.* 
Lau,  Paul :     Ursprung  und  Wesen  der  Religion  nach  W.  Wundt's  Volker-psycho- 

logie.  Konigsberg,  1912. 

Laurency,    Edme :      fitudes    sur    la    spiritualite;     notions    progressives;     precedees 

d'une  lettre  de  Victor  Hugo.  Paris,  1871.* 

Lavater,   Johann   Casper :     Essays   on   physiognomy.     Tr.  by   Holcroft. 

London,     1878. 
Lavrand,   Hubert :     Reeducation  physique  et  psychique.  Paris,   1909. 

Lawrence,    Robert   Means :     Primitive   psycho-therapy   and   quackery. 

Boston,   1910.* 
Lawson,   John   Cuthbert :     Modern   Greek   folklore   and  ancient   Greek   religion. 

Cambridge,  1910. 
Lay,  Wilfrid:     Man's  unconscious  conflict.  New  York,  1917. 

Lea,  Henry  Charles :     History  of  the  inquisition  of  Spain.     4  vols. 

New  York,  1906. 

A  history  of  the  inquisition  of  the  middle  ages.     3  vols.      New  York,  1887. 

The    inquisition    in    the    Spanish    dependencies.      Sicily,    Naples,    Sardinia, 

Milan,  The  Canaries,  Mexco,  Peru,  New  Granada.  New  York,  1908. 

Superstition  and  force ;    essays  on  the  wager  of  law,  the  wager  of  battle, 

the  ordeal,  torture.  Philadelphia,   1892. 

Lean,  Florence  Marryat   Church:     The  spirit-world.     2d   ed.  London,   1895.* 

There  is  no  death.  London,   1891.* 

Lean,    Vincent    Stuckey :     Lean's    Collectanea.      Collections    of    proverbs    (English 

and   foreign),   folk-lore,   and   superstitions;     also   compilations   towards   dic- 
tionaries  of   proverbial   phrases   and   words.  Bristol.    1902- 1904. 
Le  Braz,  Anatole:     Dealings  with   the  dead;    narratives   from   "La  legende   de  la 
mort  en  basse  Bretagne."     Authorized  translation  by  Mrs.  A.  E.  Whitehead. 

London,   1898* 


BOOKS    IN    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    LIBRARY  585 

Lebrun,  Pierre :  Histoire  critique  des  pratiques  superstitieuses,  qui  ont  seduit  les 
peuples,  et  embarasse  les  scavans ;  avec  la  methode  et  les  principes  pour 
discerner  les  effets  naturels  d'avec  ceux  qui  ne  le  sont  pas,  par  un  Pretre  de 
l'Oratoire.  Paris,    1702.* 

Lettres   qui   decouvrent   1'illusion   des   philosophes   sur   la  baguette,   et  qui 

detruisent  leurs  systemes.  Paris,   1696.* 

Lecky,  William  Edward  Hartpole :  The  history  of  the  rise  and  influence  of  the 
spirit  of  rationalism  in  Europe.     2  vols.     2  copies.  New  York,   1866. 

Lecomte,  Francois  Denis :  L'Ame ;  son  existence,  ses  manifestations,  par  F. 
Dionys   (Pseud.).  Paris,   1869.* 

Leduc,  Stephane :     Mechanism  of  life.     Tr.  by  Deane  Butcher.     New  York,  1914.* 

Lee,   Edwin  :     Animal  magnetism  and  magnetic  lucid  somnambulism. 

London,   1866.* 

Lee,  Frederick  George  (.Ed.):  Glimpses  of  the  supernatural;  being  facts,  rec- 
ords and  traditions  relating  to  dreams,  omens,  miraculous  occurrences,  ap- 
paritions,  wraiths,   warnings,    second-sight,   witchcraft,   necromancy,   etc. 

London,  1875.* 

■ (Ed.)  More  glimpses  of  the  world  unseen.  London,  1878.* 

Sights  and  shadows  ;    being  examples  of  the  supernatural.      London,  1894.* 

Lefevre,    L. :      Les    phenomenes   de   suggestion   et   d'autosuggestion,   precedes    d'un 

essai  sur  la  psychologie  physiologique.  Bruxelles,   1903.* 

Legge,  James :     Life  and  teachings  of  Confucius.  London,   1887. 

Legrain,    M. :     Les    folies   a   eclipse ;     essai    sur   le    role   du   subsconscient   dans   la 

folie.  Paris,  1910. 

Legrand,  Emile  Louis  Jean  (Tr.)  :  Recueil  de  contes  populaires  grecs.  Paris,  1881. 
Lehmann,    Alfred    Georg   Ludwig:      Aberglaube    und    Zauberei,    von    den    altesten 

Zeiten  an  bis  in  die  Gegenwart.     2.  Aufl.  Stuttgart,  1908. 

Die   Hypnose  und   die   damit  verwandten  normalen   Zustande. 

Leipzig,   1890.* 
Lehrbuch  der  Psychiatric ;    bearbeitet  von  Cramer,  Hoche,  Westphal,  Wollenberg, 
Buiswanger,   Siemerling.  Jena,   1907. 

Leighton,  Joseph  Alexander :  Typical  modern  conceptions  of  God ;  or,  The  Abso- 
lute of  German  romantic  idealism,  and  of  English  and  evolutionary  agnos- 
ticism. New  York,  1901. 
Leland,  Charles  Godfrey :  The  mystic  will ;  a  method  of  developing  and  strength- 
ening the  faculties  of  the  mind,  through  the  awakened  will,  by  a  simple 
scientific  process  possible  to  any  person  of  ordinary  intelligence. 

Chicago,  1907.* 
LeLoyer,  Pierre :     A  treatise  of  specters  or  strange  sights,  visions,  and  apparitions 
appearing  unto  men.     Tr.  by  Zachary  Jones.  London,  1605.* 

Lelut,  Louis  Francois :     Le  genie,  la  raison  et  la  folie;    le  demon  de  Socrate. 

Paris,  1890.* 
Lemaitre,  Aug. :     La  vie  mentale  de  l'adolescent  et  ses  anomalies. 

Sainte-Blaise,   1910. 

Lenormant,    Charles    Francois :      Chaldean    magic ;     its    origin    and    development. 

Translated  from  the  French.     With  considerable  additions  by  the  author,  and 

notes  by  the  editor,  William  Ricketts  Cooper.  London,  1878.* 

Levi,  Eliphas :     (Pseud.)      (See  Constant,  Alphonse  L.). 

Levy,  Eugene :  L'evangile  de  la  raison  .  .  .  Le  probleme  biologique.  Paris,  1913. 
Levy,  Paul  fimile :     L'education  rationnelle  de  la  volonte ;    son  emploi  therapeutique. 

Paris,  1913.* 

The   rational   education   of   the   will ;    its   therapeutic   value.     Preface  by 

Professor  Bernheim.     Tr.  by  Florence  K.  Bright.  Boston,  1914. 


586  APPENDIX  E 

Lewes,  Angelo  John :    Later  Magic.  New  York,  1904.* 

Modern  magic;  a  practical  treatise  on  the  art  of  conjuring;  with  an  ap- 
pendix containing  explanations  of  some  of  the  best  known  specialties  of 
Messrs.  Maskelyne  and  Cooke.  Philadelphia,  1904.* 

Lewes,  George  Henry:  The  history  of  philosophy  from  Thales  to  Comte.  2  vols. 
5th  ed.  London,  1880. 

Liebault,  Ambrose  Auguste :     Le  sommeil  provoque  et  les  etats  analogues. 

Paris,  1889.* 

Therapeutique  suggestive.  Paris,  1891* 

Liegeois,  Jules :     De  la  suggestion  hypnotique  dans  ses  rapports  avec  le  droit  civil 

et  le  droit  criminal.  Paris,  1884.* 

Life  beyond  the  grave,  described  by  a  spirit,  through  a  medium.  London,  1877. 

Light  on  the  hidden  way,  with  an  introduction  by  James  Freeman  Clarke. 

Boston,  1887. 
Lincoln,   David  Francis :     Sanity  of  mind ;    a  study  of  its  conditions  and  of  the 

means  to  its  development  and  preservation.  New  York,  1901. 

Lipmann,  Otto :     Grundriss  der  Psychologie  fur  Juristen.  Leipzig,  1908. 

Lipps,  Theodor :     Zur  Psychologie  der  Suggestion.  Leipzig,  1897. 

Lloyd,  Alfred  Henry:     The  will  to  doubt;    an  essay  in  philosophy  for  the  general 

thinker.  London,  1907. 

Lobb,  John  (Ed.):     Talks  with  the  dead;    illustrated  with  spirit  photographs. 

London,  1906.* 

Das  Tun  und  Treiben  nach  dem  Tode ;    mit  Geister-Photographien. 

Leipzig,  1909.* 
Lodge,  Sir  Oliver :     Continuity.  London,  1913. 

The  ether  of  space.  New  York,  1909. 

Life  and  Matter;  a  criticism  of  Professor  Haeckle's  "Riddle  of  the  Uni- 
verse." New  York,  1906. 

Man  and  the  Universe ;  a  study  of  the  influence  of  the  advance  in  sci- 
entific knowledge  upon  our  understanding  of  Christianity.  London,  1909. 

Modern  Problems.  London,  1912. 

Raymond ;   or  life  and  death,  with  examples  of  the  evidence  for  survival  of 

memory  and  affection  after  death.  London,  1916* 

Reason  and  belief.    5th  ed.  London,  ign.* 

Science  and  immortality.  New  York,  1908. 

The  survival  of  man ;   a  study  in  unrecognized  human  faculty. 

London,  1909. 

Loewenfeld,  Leopold :  Der  Hypnotismus ;  Handbuch  der  Lehre  von  der  Hypnose 
und  der  Suggestion  mit  besonderer  Beriicksichtigung  ihrer  Bedeutung  fur 
Medicin  und  Rechtspflege.  Wiesbaden,  1901.* 

Lombroso,  Cesare :  After  death — what?  Spiritistic  phenomena  and  their  interpre- 
tation ;    illustrated  by  photographs,  diagrams,  etc.  Boston,  1909.* 

Hypnotische  und  spiritistische  Forschungen.  Stuttgart,  1909. 

London   Dialectical   Society :     Report   on   spiritualism,   together   with   the  evidence, 

oral  and  written,  and  a  selection  from  the  correspondence.        London,  1871.* 

(Slightly  abbreviated.)  London,  1873.* 

Lord,  Frances :     Christian  Science  healing,  its  principles  and  practice. 

Chicago,  1888. 

Loryea,  James  Hawthorne:  Is  man  a  free  agent?  The  law  of  suggestion,  in- 
cluding hypnosis,  what  and  why  it  is,  and  how  to  induce  it ;  the  law  of 
nature,  mind,  heredity,  etc.,  by  Satanellie  (Pseud.).  London,  1002. 

Lotz,  Karl:    The  so-called  table-tippings.    Tr.  by  Mrs.  R.  Klein.      New  York,  1857. 


BOOKS    IN    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    LIBRARY  587 

Lotze,  Rudolf  Herman :     Medicinische  Psychologie ;    oder,  Physiologie  der  Seele. 

Leipzig,  1852. 

Principes  generaux  de  psychologie  physiologique.  Paris,  1876.* 

Lourie,  Samuel :     Die  Prinzipien  der  Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung. 

Tubingen,  1910. 

Love,  George  Henry :  Du  spiritualisme  rationnel,  a  propos  des  divers  moyens 
d'arriver  a  la  connaissance  et  de  ceux  qui  ont  ete  plus  particulierement  em- 
ployes. Paris,  1862.* 

Lowell,  James  Russell:  Witchcraft.  (In  Riverside  Edition  of  his  Writings, 
vol.  2.)  Boston,  1891. 

Lowell,  Percival :  Occult  Japan ;  or,  The  way  of  the  gods ;  an  esoteric  study  of 
Japanese  personality  and  possession.    4th  ed.  Boston,  1894. 

Lubomirska,  Princesse :     Les  prejuges  sur  la  folie.  Paris,  1908. 

Lubomirski,  Josef,  Prince  :     Une  religion  nouvelle ;    le  Christianisme  legal. 

Paris,  1885* 

Lucka,  Emil :     Die  Phantasie ;    eine  psychologische  Untersuchung.        Leipzig,  1908. 

Ludowici,  August :     Das  genetische  Prinzip ;    Versuch  einer  Lebenslehre. 

Miinchen,  1913. 

Lugaro,  Ernesto :     Modern  problems  in  psychiatry.  Manchester,  1909. 

Lull,  Ramon :  Illuminati  sacre  pagine  pfessoris  .  .  .  ars  magna  generalis  et  ul- 
tima. Lugduni,   1517.* 

Lum,  Dyer  Daniel :  The  "spiritual"  delusion ;  its  methods,  teachings,  and  effects ; 
the  philosophy  and  phenomena   critically  examined.  Philadelphia,   1873.* 

Lummis,  Charles  Fletcher :  The  man  who  married  the  moon,  and  other  Pueblo 
Indian  folk-stories.  New  York,  1894. 

Lustig,  Max :     Das  Gedankenlesen  ;    das  zweite  Gesicht.  Leipzig,  1906.* 

Luys,   Jules   Bernard :     Brain   and   its    functions.  New    York,    1890. 

Lec.ons  cliniques   sur  les  principaux  phenomenes   de  l'hypnotisme. 

Paris,  1890.* 

Mabinogion:     Knightly  legends  of  Wales.    Ed.  by  Sidney  Lanier.    New  York,  1893. 
The  Mabinogion.    Tr.  with  notes  by  Lady  C.  Guest.  London,  1877. 

Macbeth,  James :     The  song  of  the  cross,  and  the  chant  of  the  labour  of  Satan. 

London,   1902.* 

McCabe,  Margaret  Virginia:     Life  forces.  Washington,   1899.* 

Macdonald,  Arthur:  Abnormal  man;  being  essays  on  education,  crime,  and  re- 
lated subjects;    with   digests   of  literature  and  a  bibliography. 

Washington,   1893. 

Macdonald,  George :     The  portent ;    a  story  of  the  inner  vision  of  the  Highlanders, 

commonly  called  the  second  sight.  London,   1864* 

MacDougall,   James:     Folk   tales  and   fairy  lore  in   Gaelic  and   English.     Ed.  by 

G.  Calder.  Edinburgh,   1910. 

M'Dougall,  William:     Body  and  mind.  London,  191 1. 

Mach    Ernst:     The  analysis  of  sensations  and  the  relation  of  the  physical  to  the 

psychical.  Tr.  by  C.  M.  Williams;  ed.  by  S.  Waterlow.  Chicago,  1914. 
History  and  root  of  the  principle  of  the  conservation  of  energy.    Tr.  from 

the  German  and  annotated  by  Philip  Jourdain.  Chicago,  191 1.* 

Machado    y   Alvarez,    Antonio    (Ed.):     Folk-lore;     biblioteca    de    las    tradiciones 

populares  espanolas.     n  vols.  Sevilla,   1883-O. 

Mackay,  Charles:     Memoirs  of  extraordinary  popular  delusions      2  vols. 

J  Philadelphia,    1850.* 

Mackaye,  James:     Economy  of  happiness.  Boston,   1906. 


588  APPENDIX  E 

Mackenzie,  Alexander:     The  prophecies  of  the  Brahan  seer.  Inverness,   1882.* 

Maclagan,  Robrt  Craig:     Evil   eye  in  the  western  highlands.  London,   1902.* 

Macnish,   Robert :     The  philosophy   of  sleep.     3d  ed.  Glasgow,   1834.* 

McQuilkin,  Harmon  H. :     The  evolution  of  psychic  healing.       San  Jose,  Cal.,  1909. 
McTaggart,  John  McTaggart  Ellis :     Some  dogmas  of  religion.  London,   1906. 

Madden,  Richard  Robert :     Phantasmata ;    or,  illusions  and  fanaticisms  of  Protean 

forms,  productive  of  great  evils.  London,  1857.* 

Maeder,  A.  E. :     The  dream  problem.     (Tr.  Hallock  and  JellifFe.) 

New  York,  1916. 
Martens,  P. :     Zur  Lanzelotsage.  Bonn,  1880. 

Maeterlinck,  Maurice :     Our  eternity.     Tr.  by  Alexander  Teixeira  de  Mattos. 

London,  1913. 

■    The  unknown  guest.    Tr.  by  Alex.  Teixeira  de  Mattos.  London,  19 14. 

Magica  de  spectris  et  apparitionibus  spiritu,  de  vaticiniis,  divinationibus,  etc. 

Batavorum,  1656.* 
Magnin,  Paul :     fitude  clinique  et  experimentale  sur  l'hypnotisme  de  quelques  effets 

des  excitations  peripheriques  chez  les  hystero-epileptiques  a  l'etat  de  veille  et 

de  hypnotisme.  Paris,  1884.* 

Magoun,  Herbert  William:     Witchcraft  among  the  Hindus.     (In  Colorado  College 

Studies,  v.  2.)  Colorado  College,  1891. 
Mahan,  Asa :  Modern  mysteries  explained  and  exposed.  Boston,  1855. 
■     Spiritualism ;    or,  a  discussion  on  the  cause  and  effect  of  the  phenomena, 

by  President  A.  Mahan,  Prof.  Rehn,  Joel  Tiffany,  and  others. 

Cleveland,   1855.* 
The  Mahatma,  a  tale  of  modern  theosophy.  London,  1895.* 

Mainhardt,  Thomas:     Die  nervosen  Angstgefuhle ;    ihre  Beherrschung  und   Besei- 

tigung  durch  ein  einfaches  psychologisches  Verfahren.  Leipzig,  1908. 

Mallock,  William  Hurrell :     Studies  of  contemporary  superstition.        London,  1895. 
Manaceine,    Maria    Mikhailovna    de :      Sleep ;     its    physiology,    pathology,    hygiene, 

and  psychology.  London,  1897. 

Mantegazza,    Paolo :     Physiognomy   and   expression.  London,    1899. 

Marbe,  Karl:     Naturphilosophische  Untersuchungen  zur  Wahrscheinlichkeitslehre. 

Leipzig,   1899. 

Marchesini,  Giovanni :  II  dominio  dello  spirito  ossia  il  problema  della  person- 
alis e  il  diritto  all'orgoglio.  Torino,  1902.* 

Marett,  Robert  Ranulph:     The  threshold  of  religion.  London,  1909. 

Marie,   Auguste :     La   demence.  Pans,    1906. 

Marro,  Antonio:  La  puberte  chez  l'homme  et  chez  la  femme,  etudiee  dans  ses 
rapports  avec  1'anthropologie,  la  psychiatrie,  la  pedagogie,  et  la  sociologie. 

Paris,   1902. 

Marryat,  Florence.     (See  Lean,  Florence  Marryat). 

Marshall,  Henry  Rutgers :     Consciousness.  New  York,  1909. 

Martin  G  :  Gedankenkrafte ;  ihre  Wirkung  auf  uns  und  andere,  ihre  Macht 
u'ber  Tod  und  Leben ;  eine  Anleitung  zu  psychischen  Korperkulter,  Lebens- 
verschonerung  und  Lebensverlangerung.  Leipzig,  1910.* 

Martin,  Lillien  Jane:     Ghosts  and  the  projection  of  visual  images. 

Albany,  191 5. 

Zur   Be<*riindung  und  Anwendung  der   Suggestions-Methode  in  der   Nor- 

mal-psychologie.  Le>Pz'g>   «9°7- 

Martin  Martin-  Description  of  the  Western  Islands  of  Scotland.  (In  Pinker- 
t'on  Tohn-  A  general  collection  of  the  best  and  most  interesting  voyages 
j   1        i.      .,    -,1  London.   1809. 

and  travels,     v.  3). 


BOOKS    IN    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    LIBRARY  589 

Marvin,  Dwight  Edwards:     Curiosities  in  proverbs.  New  York,  1916. 

Marvin,  Frederick  R. :  Philosophy  of  spiritualism  and  pathology  and  treatment 
of  mediomama.  New  York,  1874.* 

Masayoshi,   Ota:     Japanese  proverbs.  n.  p.,   1893. 

Maskelyne,  John  Nevil :     The  fraud  of  modern  "theosophy"  exposed. 

New  York,   1913.* 

Modern  spiritualism;    a  short  account  of  its  rise  and  progress,  with  some 

exposures   of   so-called   spirit   media.  London,    1876.* 

and  Devant,  D. :     Our  magic;    the  art  of  magic,  the  theory  of  magic,  the 

practise  of  magic.  New  York,  191 1* 

Mason,  Rufus  Osgood :  Hypnotism  and  suggestion  in  therapeutics,  education,  and 
reform.  New  York,   1901. 

■ Telepathy  and  the  subliminal  self;  an  account  of  recent  investigations  re- 
garding hypnotism,  automatism,  dreams,  phantasms,  and  related  phenomena. 

New  York,  1899.* 
Massey,  Gerald:     Concerning  spiritualism.  London,   1871.* 

Mather,  Cotton :  Strange  phenomena  of  New  England,  in  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury; including  the  "Salem  witchcraft,"  1692.  From  the  writings  of  the 
Rev.  Cotton  Mather,  D.  D.  Collected  and  arranged  for  re-publication  by 
Henry  Jones.  New  York,    1846.* 

The  wonders  of  the   invisible  world ;    being  an   account  of  the   tryals  of 

several  witches  lately  executed  in  New  England ;  to  which  is  added,  a 
farther  account  of  the  tryals  of  the  New  England  witches,  by  Increase 
Mather.  London,   1862.* 

Mather,  Increase :  Remarkable  providences  illustrative  of  the  earlier  days  of 
American  colonization.     Introductory  preface  by  George  Offor. 

London,  1890.* 

Mattison,  Hiram :  Spirit-rapping  unveiled !  An  expose  of  the  origin,  history, 
theology  and  philosophy  of  certain  alleged  communications  from  the  spirit- 
world,  by  means  of  "spirit  rapping,"  "medium  writing,"  "physical  demonstra- 
tions,"  etc.  •  New   York,   1855.* 

Matzke,  John  Ernst :  Contribution  to  the  history  of  the  legends  of  St.  George. 
2  vols.  Baltimore,  1902-03. 

Maudsley,  Henry:     Body  and  mind.  New  York,  1871. 

2d  ed.  New  York,  1890. 

Body  and  will ;  being  an  essay  concerning  will  in  its  metaphysical,  physio- 
logical, and  pathological  aspects.  New  York,   1884.. 

Natural  causes   and  supernatural   seemings.  London,    1886.* 

Pathology  of  mind;    a  study  of  its  distempers,  deformities,  and  disorders. 

London.  1895. 

Physiology  and  pathology  of  the  mind.  New  York,   1867. 

Responsibility  in  mental  disease.  New  York,  1892. 

Maury,  Louis  Ferdinand  Alfred:     La  magie   et  l'astrologie   dans  l'antiquite  et  au 

moyen  age ;    on,  fitude  stir  les  superstitions  paiennes  qui  se  sont  perpetuees 

jusqu'a  nos  jours.  Paris,  1864.* 

Le   sommeil   et   les   reves ;    etudes   psychologiques   sur   ces  phenomenes   et 

les  divers  etats  qui  s'y  rattachent.  Paris,  1878. 

Maxwell,  Joseph :  Metaphysical  phenomena ;  methods  and  observations ;  with  a 
preface  by  Charles  Richet,  and  an  introduction  by  Sir  Oliver  Lodge;  also 
with  a  new  chapter  containing  "A  complex  case,"  by  Professor  Richet,  and 
an  account  of  "Some  recently  observed  phenomena,"  by  the  Tr.,  L.  I. 
Finch.  London,  1905.* 


590  APPENDIX  E 

Maynard,   Mrs.   Henrietta   Sturdevant   Colburn :     Was   Abraham   Lincoln  a  spirit- 
ualist?    Curious   revelations  from  the  life  of  a  trance  medium;    with  por- 
traits, letters,  and  poems.  Philadelphia,   1891.* 
Mayo,  Herbert:     Popular  superstitions  and  the  truths  contained  therein.     (From 
the  Gentleman's  Magazine.)  Philadelphia,   1852.* 
Mechnikov,   Il'ia   Il'ich :     The   nature   of   man ;     studies   in   optimistic   philosophy. 

New  York,  1908. 
Medina,  Jose  Toribio :     Historia  del  tribunal  del  Santo  oficio  de  la  inquisicion  en 
Mexico.  Santiago  de  Chile,  1905. 

Meier,  Ernst :     Deutsche  Sagen,  Sitten  und  Gebrauche  aus  Schwaben.     2  vols. 

Stuttgart,  1852. 
Meinhold,  Johann  Wilhelm,    (Ed.)  :     Mary  Schweidler,  the  Amber  witch. 

New  York,  1845.* 

Sidonia  the  sorceress,  the  supposed  destroyer  of  the  whole  reigning  ducal 

house  of  Pomerania.     2  vols.  London,  1849.* 

Melville,  John :  Crystal-gazing,  and  the  wonders  of  clairvoyance ;  embracing 
practical  instructions  in  the  art,  history,  and  philosophy  of  this  ancient 
science.  London,   1003.* 

Memoirs  of  Thomas  Harrington ;  with  a  short  account  of  the  lights  that  ap- 
peared in  his  house  at  Glandore,  1836-7.  Cork,  1840.* 

Mendel,  Emanuel :  Text-book  of  psychiatry ;  a  psychological  study  of  insanity 
for  practitioners  and  students.  Philadelphia,  1908. 

Mendousse,  P. :     L'ame  de  l'adolescent.  Paris,   1909. 

Mercier,   Charles   Arthur:     Criminal   responsibility.  Oxford,    1905. 

A  new  logic.  London,  1912. 

Sanity  and  insanity.  London,  1899. 

A  text-book  of  insanity.  London,  1902. 

Meric,  £lie :     Le  merveilleux  et  la  science ;    etude  sur  l'hypnotisme. 

Paris,  1888* 
Merrett,  Dr.  Christopher.     (See  Kunckel,  Johann.) 

Merriam,  Clinton  Hart :  The  dawn  of  the  world ;  myths  and  weird  tales  told  by 
the  Mewan  Indians  of  California.  Cleveland,  1910. 

Merriman,  Mansfield :     Text-book  on  the  method  of  least  squares. 

New  York,  1891. 

Mesmer,  Friedrich  Anton :  Precis  historique  des  faits  relatifs  au  magnetisme 
animal,  jusques  en  avril   1781.     Tr.   de  l'allemand.  London,    1781.* 

Mesnet,  Ernest :     Cystocele  vaginale,  operee  dans  le  sommeil  hypnotique. 

Paris,  1889.* 

Metzger,  Daniel :  Essai  de  spiritisme  scientifique.  With  Paul  Gibier :  Physiologie 
transcendentale.  Paris,   1890. 

Meunier,  Paul,  and  Messelon,  R. :  Les  reves  et  leur  interpretation;  essai  de  psy- 
chologic morbide.  Paris,  1910. 

Meyer,  Adolf:  Dementia  praecox ;  a  monograph  by  S.  E.  Meyer  and  Hoch  Jel- 
iffe.  Boston,  191 1. 

Meyer,  George  Hermann  von:  Ueber  Sinnestauschungen.  (In  Sammlung  ge- 
meinverstandlicher   wissenschaftlicher   Vortrage,   v.    I.)  Berlin,    1866. 

Meyer,  Max  Friedrich :  The  fundamental  laws  of  human  behavior ;  lectures  on 
the  foundations  of  any  mental  or  social  science.  Boston,  191 1. 

Michaelis,  Christian  August:  Anti-Gall;  oder,  Kranioskopische  Fragmente  fur 
Leser  und  Nichtleser  der  Schadellehre.  Leipzig,  1805. 

Michaltschow,  Dimitri :  Philosophische  Studien  ;  Beitriige  zur  Kritik  des  moder- 
nen  Psychologismus.  Leipzig,  1909. 


BOOKS    IN    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    LIBRARY  591 

Michelet,  Jules:     Legendes  democratiques  du  nord ;     la  sorciere.  Paris,  1895. 

La  sorciere.  Paris,  1867* 

Michigan  State  Spiritual  Association:     Constitution  and  addresses.     Detroit,   1866. 
Michon,  Jean  Hippolyte:     Les  mystiques,  par  l'abbe.  .  .  .  Paris,   1869* 

Mignard,  M. :     La  joie  passive ;    etude  de  psychologie  pathologique.       Paris,   1909. 
Migne,  Jacques  Paul  (Ed.)  :     Dictionnaire  des  sciences  occultes.    2  vols,  in  1. 

Paris,  1846-48.* 
Miles,  Eustace  Hamilton:     Mathematical  law  in  the  spiritual  world. 

London,  1901.* 
Miller,    Hugh    Crichton :     Hypnotism    and    disease;     a    plea    for    rational    psycho- 
therapy.    Introduction  by  Charles  Lloyd  Tuckey.  Boston,  1913.* 
Miller,  John :     Metaphysics  or  the  science  of  perception.                    New  York,  1904. 
Mills-Tanner,  and  Mcintosh,  W. :     Spiritualism !    Fact  versus  fallacy. 

Geelong,  Australia,  1915. 
Mitchell,  Sir  Arthur:     About  dreaming,  laughing,  and  blushing. 

Edinburgh,  1905. 
Mitchell,  John :     The  philosophy  of  witchcraft.  Paisley,   1839. 

Mobius,  Paul  und  Julius  August :     Die  HofFnungslosigkeit  aller  Psychologie. 

Halle,  1907. 
Moll,   Albert:     Christian   Science,   medicine,  and  occultism.  London,   1902.* 

Hypnotism;    including  a   study  of  the  chief  points  of  psycho-therapeutics 

and  occultism.     Tr.  by  A..  F.  Hopkirk.  London,   1890. 

4th  ed.  New  York,  1909.* 

Der    Rapport    in    der    Hypnose ;     Untersuchungen    iiber    den    thierischen 

Magnetismus.  Leipzig,  1893. 

Monakow,   Constantin   von :     Gehirnpathologie.     2d   ed.  Wien,    1905. 

Montgomery,  Edmund :     Philosophical  problems  in  the  light  of  vital  organization. 

London,  1907. 
Mooney,  James:     The  ghost-dance  religion  and  the  Sioux  outbreak  of  1890.     (In 

U.  S.   Bureau  of  American  ethnology:     14th  Annual  Report,  1892-93). 

Washington,   1896. 
Moor,  James :     Bealings  bells ;    an  account  of  the  mysterious  ringing  of  bells  at 

Great  Bealings,   Suffolk,  in   1834.  Woodbridge,   1841. 

Moore,  George  Henry:     History  of  witchcraft,  in  Massachusetts.     (In  Mass.  Hist. 

Soc.  Proceedings,  n.  s.,  v.  2.)  Worcester,  Mass,  1883. 

Notes  on  the  bibliography  of  witchcraft  in  Massachusetts.  (In  Am.  An- 
tiquarian Soc.  Proceedings,  n.  s.,  v.  5.)  Worcester,  Mass.,  1889. 

Notes  on  the  history  of  witchcraft  in  Massachusetts.     (In  Am.  Antiquarian 

Soc.  Proceedings,  n.  s.,  v.  2.)  Worcester,  Mass.,  1883. 

Moraleda  y  Esteban,  Juan:     Los  seises  de  la  catedral  de  Toledo.         Toledo,  191 1. 

Moreau,  Jacques  Joseph  :     Du  hachisch  et  de  l'alienation  mentale.  Paris,   1845. 

Moreton,  Andrew  (Pseud.).     (See  Defoe,  Daniel.) 

Morin,  Andre  Saturnin :     Du  magnetisme  et  des  sciences  occultes.         Paris,   i860.* 

Morley,  Christopher  Love :  Collectanea  chymica  leidensia.  In  Ordnung  zusam- 
mengetragen  .  .  .  durch  Theodorum  Muykens.     3te  Aufl.  Jena,  1726. 

Morse,  J.  J.:  Concerning  the  spiritual  world,  and  what  men  know  thereof;  an 
inspirational  oration  delivered  in  the  trance  state  at  the  Broad  Street  As- 
sembly Rooms.  London,  1874* 

Heaven  and  hell,  viewed  in  their  relation  to  modern  spiritualism. 

London,    1874* 

Spiritualism  as  an  aid  and  method  of  human  progress.       London,   1873* 

What  of  the   dead?  London,   1873* 


592  APPENDIX  E 

Morsclli,   Enrico  Agostino :     Psicologia  e  "spiritismo."     2  vols.  Torino,   1908.* 

Moses,   William    Stainton :     Higher  aspects   of   spiritualism.  London,    1880.* 

Psychography ;  a  treatise  on  one  of  the  objective  forms  of  psychic  or  spir- 
itual  phenomena;    by  "M.  A.    (.Oxon)."  London,   1878.* 

Spirit   identity.  London,    1879.* 

Spirit   teachings.  London,   1883.* 

Mosiman,    Eddison :      Das    Zungenreden,    geschichtlich    und    psychologisch    unter- 

sucht.  Leipzig,  191 1. 

Mosso,  Angelo :     Psychic  processes  and  muscular  exercise.  Lexington,  1909. 

Die  Temperatur  des  Gehirns.  Leipzig,   1894. 

Ueber  den  Kreislauf  des  Blutes  im  menschlichen  Gehirn.       Leipzig,  1881. 

Mountford,   William :     Miracles,  past   and  present.  Boston,    1870.* 

Moutin,   Lvcicn:      Le  magnetisme   humain,   l'hypnotisme  et  le   spiritisme   moderne, 

considered  aux  points  de  vue  theorique  et  pratique.  Paris,  1907.* 

Le   nouvel   hypnotisme.  Paris,    1887.* 

Moyscowicz,  Leo :  An  der  Grenze  des  (jbersinnlichen ;  unser  Seelenleben  Hyp- 
nose,  Suggestion,  Telepathie ;  der  personliche  Einfluss,  ein  neuer  Weg  zum 
Erfolg!  Strassburg,  1910.* 

Muller,  Friedrich  Max:     Physical  religion.  London,  1891. 

■ Chips  from  a  German  workshop.     5  vols.  New  York,  1889. 

Sacred  books  of  the  East.     50  vols.  Oxford,  1879-1910. 

Theosophy  or  psychological  religion.  London,  1895. 

Muller,  Johannes:     Ueber  die  phantastischen   Geschichtserscheinungen. 

Coblenz,  1826. 

Muller,  Rudolf:     Naturwissenschaftliche  Seelenforschung.     3  vols.     Leipzig,  1897.* 
Munsterberg,  Hugo:     Psychology  and  social  sanity.     (Ch.  iii.  The  intellectual  un- 
derworld;   ch.  iv.  Thought-transference;    ch.  x.  Naive  psychology.) 

New  York,  1914. 

Ueber  Aufgaben  und  Methoden  der  Psychologie.  Leipzig,  1893.* 

Mulford,   Prentice:     Gift   of  the   spirit.  London,   1908.* 

Munckwitz,   Reinhold :     Die   Wundermacht  des   Hypnotismus ;    das   Geheimnis   zur 

Selbstausfiihrung  vieler  wach-  und  hypnotischer  Experimente.  Leipzig,  1009.* 
Munro,  Henry  Sumner:     Handbook  of  suggestive  therapeutics,  applied  hypnotism, 

psychic  science ;    a  manual  of  practical  psychotherapy,  designed  especially  for 

the  general  practitioner  of  medicine  and  surgery.  3d  ed.  St.  Louis,  1913* 
Murphy,  Robert  Wilson:     A  key  to  the  secret  vault;    a  solution  of  man's  origin, 

the   philosophy  of  his   present  condition,  and  his  future   destiny.     2  copies. 

San  Francisco,  1890. 
Myers,  Frederic  William  Henry :     Fragments  of  prose  and  poetry.     London.  1904.* 

Human  personality  and  its  survival  of  bodily  death.    2  vols.     London,  1904. 

La  personnalite  humaine,  sa  survivance,  ses  manifestations  supranormales. 

Paris,  1905.* 

Science  and  a  future  life ;   with  other  essays.  London,  1893.* 

Neal    E   Virgil,  and  Clark   (Ed.):     Hypnotism  and  hypnotic  suggestion;    a  scien- 

'  tine  treatise  on  the  uses  and  possibilities  of  hypnotism,  suggestion,  and  allied 

phenomena;    by  thirty  authors.  Rochester,   1900. 

Nevius  John  Livingston:  Demon  possession  and  allied  themes;  being  an  induc- 
tive study  of  phenomena  of  our  own  times ;  with  an  introduction  by  Rev.  F. 
F  Ellinwood-  with  an  index,  bibliographical,  Biblical,  pathological,  and 
general.    3d  ed.  Chicago,  1893* 

New  York  Citv  Christian   Science  Institution:     Vital  issues   in   Christian   Science. 

New  York,   1914. 


BOOKS    IN    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    LIBRARY  593 

Newell,  William  Wells:     Games  and  songs  of  American  children. 

New  York,  1883. 

Newman,  John  B. :  Fascination;  The  philosophy  of  charming;  illustrating  the 
principles  of  life  in  connection  with  spirit  and  matter.  New  York,  18S1.* 

Newnham,  William:  Essay  on  superstition;  being  an  inquiry  into  the  effects  of 
physical  influence  on  the  mind  in  the  production  of  dreams,  visions,  ghosts 
and  other  supernatural  appearances.  London,   1830.* 

Human  magnetism ;    its  claim  to  dispassionate  inquiry ;    being  an  attempt 

to  show  the  utility  of  its  applicaton  for  the  relief  of  human  suffering. 

London,   1845.* 

Newton,  Richard  Heber:  Christian  science,  the  truths  of  spiritual  healing  and 
their  contribution  to  the  growth  of  orthodoxy.  New  York,   1898 

Nichols,  Thomas  L :  A  biography  of  the  brothers  Davenport;  with  some  ac- 
count of  the  physical  and  psychical  phenomena  which  have  occurred  in  their 
presence,  in  America  and  Europe.  London,   1864.* 

Nilsson,    Nils    Martin    Person:     Primitive    religion.  Tubingen,    191 1. 

Nisbet,  Hay  (Ed.):  Hafed,  prince  of  Persia;  his  experiences  in  earth-life  and 
spirit-life.  Glasgow,   1893.* 

(Ed.)  :     Hermes,  a  disciple  of  Jesus;    his  life  and  missionary  work;    also 

the   evangelistic   travels  of   Anah  and   Zitha  .  .  .  together   with   incidents   in 
the  life  of  Jesus  given  by  a  disciple  through  Hafed.  Glasgow,  1893.* 

Nitsche,  Paul,  and  Wilmanns,  Karl :  The  history  of  the  prison  psychoses.  Tr.  by 
F.   M.   Barnes,  jr.,  and  B.   Glueck.  New   York,   1912. 

Noeggerath,  Rulina  (Comp.)  :  La  survie;  sa  realite,  sa  manifestation,  sa  philo- 
sophie ;    echos  de  l'audela.    nouv.  ed.  Paris,  1907.* 

Noel,  Roden  Berkeley  Wriothesley :     A  philosophy  of  immortality.     London,  1882.* 

Nostrodamus,  Michael   de.     (See   Notredame,  Michel  de.) 

N'utredame,  Michel  de :  The  true  prophecies;  or,  Prognostications  of  Michel 
Nostradamus,  physician  of  Henry  II,  Francis  II,  and  Charles  IX,  kings  of 
France,  and  one  of  the  best  astronomers  that  ever  were;  a  work  full  of 
curiosity  and  learning.     Tr.  by  Theophilus  de  Garencieres.  London,  1672. 

Nouffert.  Ernest :  Le  globe  terrestre  lie  a  un  globe  invisible,  suivant  des  reve- 
lations;   le  progres  moral  devan^ant  le  progres   intellectuel.       Paris,   1900.* 

Nourry,  E.  Saintyves   (Pseud.)  :     Le  miracle  et  la  critique  scientifique. 

Paris,  1907. 

Les  saints,  successeurs  des  dieux.  Paris,  1907. 

La  simulation  du  merveilleux.  Paris,   1912.* 

Noyes,  John  Humphrey:     History  of  American  socialisms.  Philadelphia,  1870. 

Nunez,  Herman  :     Refranes  o  proverbios  en  romance  ...  y  La  filosofia  vvlgar  de 

Ivan  de  Mai  Lara  en  mil  refranes  glossados  que  son  todos  los  que  hasta  aora 

en  castellano  andan  impressos.  Madrid,   1619. 

Nus,  Eugene   (Ed.):     Les  origines  et  les  fins;    cosmogonie  sous  la  dictee  de  trois 

dualites  differentes  de  l'espace.     (Librairie  des  sciences  psychologiques). 

Paris,  1889. 
Oahspe,  a  new  Bible  in  the  words  of  Jehovah  and  his  angel  ambassadors ;    a  sacred 

history  of  the  dominions  of  the  higher  and  lower  heavens  on  the  earth. 

Boston,   1891. 
Observationum   selectarum   ad   rem   litterariam  spectantium.  Halae,    1700. 

Ochorowicz,  J.:     De  la  suggestion  mentale.  Paris,   1887.* 

O'Donnell,   Elliott:     Bona-fide  adventures  with  ghosts.  Bristol,   1908.* 

Scottish  ghost  stories.  London,  191 1  * 

Oelzelt-Newin,  Anton:     Ueber  Phantasie-Vorstellungen.  Graz,  1889. 

Oesten  eich,  Konstantin  :     Die  Phanomenologie  des  Ich  in  ihren  Grundproblemen. 

Leipzig,  1910. 


594  APPENDIX  E 

Oken,  Lorenz :     Elements  of  physio-philosophy.  London,   1847. 

Olcott,  Henry  Steel :  Old  diary  leaves,  the  true  story  of  the  Theosophical  So- 
ciety. New  York,  1895.* 

Oliphant,  Mrs.  Laurence.     (See  Oliphant,  Rosamond  Templeton.) 

Oliphant,  Mrs.  Margaret  Oliphant  Wilson:  The  land  of  darkness;  along  with 
some  further  chapters  in  the  experiences  of  the  Little  Pilgrim. 

London,   1888.* 

A  little  pilgrim  in  the  unseen.  London,  1882.* 

Memoir   of  the  life  of  Laurence   Oliphant  and  Alice   Oliphant,   his  wife. 

2  vols.  New  York,  1891. 

Two  stories  of  the  seen  and  the  unseen ;    the  open  door ;    old  Lady  Mary. 

Edinburgh,  1885.* 

Oliphant,   Rosamond   Templeton  :     The   mediators.  London,    18 — .* 

Oilier,  Charles :     Fallacy  of  ghosts,  dreams,  and  omens.  London,  1848.* 

Oman,  John   Campbell:     Brahmans,  theists,  and   Muslims   of  India.     (Descriptive 

sketches  of  curious  festivals.).  London,  1907. 

Oracula   sibyllina ;    Die   Oracula   sibyllina ;    bearbeitet   im   Auftrage  der   Kirchen- 

vater-Commission  der  Konigl.  preussischen  Akademie  der  Wissenchaften  von 

Dr.  Joh.  Geffcken.  Leipzig,  1902. 

. The  sibylline  oracles.    Tr.  from  the  Greek  by  Milton  S.  Terry. 

New  York,  1890.* 

Origins  of  Christianity,  transcribed  by  M.  Faraday,  from  the  communications  of 
ancient  spirits.  Springfield,  Mass.,  1883* 

Ortoli,  Jean  Baptiste  Frederic :     Les  contes  populaires  de  l'ile  de  Corse. 

Paris,  1883. 

Osborn,  Albert  Sherman :  Questioned  documents ;  a  study  in  questioned  docu- 
ments with  an  outline  of  methods  by  which  the  facts  may  be  discovered  and 
shown.  New  York,   1910. 

Osier,  William:     Science  and  immortality.  Boston,  1904. 

Osty,   Eugene:     Lucidite  et   intuition.  Paris,   1913.* 

Otero  Acevedo,  M. :     Los  espiritus.  Madrid,   1893* 

Otto,  A. :     Die   Sprichworter  und  sprichwortlichen  Redensarten  der   Romer. 

Leipzig,  1890. 

Owen  Mary  Alicia:  Voodoo  tales,  as  told  among  the  negroes  of  the  South- 
west. New  York'  l893- 

Owen,  Robert  Dale:  The  debatable  land  between  this  world  and  the  next;  with 
illustrative  narrations.  New  York,   1872.* 

Footfalls  on  the  boundary  of  another  world:    with  narrative  illustrations. 

London,  i860.* 

Oxon,  M.  A.   (Pseud.).     (See  Moses,  W.   Stainton.) 

Ozanam,  Jacques:  Recreations  in  mathematics  and  natural  philosophy.  Hutton's 
translation  of  Montucla's   edition.     4  vols.  London,    1814. 

Pacheu,  Jules:  Psychologie  des  mystiques  chretiens;  critique  des  faits;  experi- 
ence mystique  et  l'activite  subconsciente.  Paris,   191 I* 

Paganini,  Virginia :  La  scienza  spirituale  attraverso  i  secoli ;  tracciando  i  des- 
tin'i  dell'  umanita.  Firenze,  1895.* 

Page  Charles  Grafton:  Psvchomancy;  Spirit-rappings  and  table-tippings  ex- 
posed. New  York-   l853* 

Paget  Walpurga  E.  Helena  von  Hoenthal,  Lady  (Ed.)  :  Colloquies  with  an  un- 
'seen  friend.  London,   1907.* 

Pailloux,  Xavier:     Le  magnetisme,  le  spiritisme,  et  la  possession.  Paris.  1863.* 

Palmer,  George  Herbert:     The  problem  of  freedom.  Boston,   191 1. 


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Pappalardo,  Armando:  La  telepatia  (trasmissione  del  pensiero).  3.  ed.  riv.  ed 
amP-  Milano,  1912.* 

Paracelsus :     The  hermetic  and  alchemical  writings.     Tr.  by  Waite.     London,  1894. 

Parish,  Edmund:  Hallucinations  and  illusions,  a  study  of  the  fallacies  of  per- 
ception. New   York,   1897. 

Ueber  die  Trugwahrenehmung  (Hallucination  und  Illusion)  mit  besonderer 

Beriicksichtigung  der  internationalen  Enquete  iiber  Wachhallucinationen  bei 
Gesunden.     (In  Schriften  d.  Gcs.  f.  psycho!.  Forsch.  II.)  Leipzig,  1894. 

Zur  Kritik  des  telepathischen  Beweismaterials.  Leipzig,   1897.* 

Parsons,  John  Denham :  Our  sum-god;  Christianity  before  Christ;  a  demonstra- 
tion that  as  the  fathers  admitted,  our  religion  existed  before  our  era,  and 
even  in  pre-historic  times.  London,  1895* 

Pascal,  Constanza  :  La  demence  precoce ;  etude  psychologique  medicale  et  medi- 
co-legale.  parjS)   I9IIi 

Pasley,  T.  H. :  The  philosophy  which  shows  the  physiology  of  mesmerism,  and 
explains  the  phenomena  of  clairvoyance.  London,  1848* 

Patanjali :     The  Yoga-sutra  of  Patanjali ;    by  Manilal  Nabhubhai  Dvivedi. 

Bombay,   1890.* 

Patience  Worth ;  a  psychic  mystery ;  by  Casper  S.  Yost ;  an  account  of  the  psy- 
chical experiences  of  Mrs.  John  H.  Curran.  New  York,  1916. 

Paton,   Stewart :     Psychiatry ;    a  text-book   for  students  and  physicians. 

Philadelphia,   1905. 

Patrick,  G.  T.  W. :  Some  peculiarities  of  the  secondary  personality.  In  Univ.  of 
Iowa  Studies  in  Psychology,  v.  2.)  Iowa  City,  1899. 

Paulhan,  Frederic :     L'activite  mentale  et  les  elements  de  l'esprit.  Paris,  1913. 

Peebles.  James  Martin:  The  Christ  question  settled;  or,  Jesus,  man,  medium, 
martyr ;    a  symposium.  Battle  Creek,  1909. 

Death  defeated ;    or,  The  psvchic  secret  of  how  to  keep  young. 

Battle  Creek,  1908.* 

The  demonism  of  the  ages;    spirit  obsessions  so  common  in  spiritualism; 

spirit-mates  their  origin  and  destiny ;  immortality  and  our  employments 
hereafter;  the  spirit's  pathway  traced;  seers  of  the  age;  what  is  spiritual- 
ism?    A  series  of  seven  essays  upon  spiritualism  versus  materialism. 

Battle  Creek,  1907. 

— Immortality  and  our  employments  hereafter.  Battle  Creek,   1907. 

■     Reincarnation,    or   the    doctrine   of   the    "Soul's"    successive    embodiments 

examined  and  discussed  pro  and  con  by  Dr.  J.  M.  Peebles  vs.  Dr.  Helen 
Densmore  and  W.  J.  Colville.  Battle  Creek,   1004.* 

Seers   of  the   ages ;    embracing   spiritualism   past   and   present ;    doctrines 

stated  and  moral  tendencies  defined.  Chicago,  1903.* 

A   series   of   seven   essays  upon   spiritualism   vs.   materialism  appearing  in 

the  Free  Thought   Magazine.  Battle  Creek,   1902. 

Spirit-mates,  their  origin  and  destiny,  sex-life,  marriage,  divorce;    also  a 

symposium  by  forty  noted  writers.    Ed.  by  R.  P.  Sudall.    Battle  Creek,  1909. 

The    spirit's    pathway   traced;     did    it    pre-exist    and   does    it    reincarnate 

again  into  mortal  life?  Battle  Creek,  1906.* 

What  is  spiritualism?  Who  are  these  spiritualists  and  what  can  spiritual- 
ism do  for  the  world?  Battle  Creek,  1910. 

Peers,  Edgar  Allison  :    Elizabethan  drama  and  its  mad  folk.  Cambridge,  1914. 

Peillaube,  E. :     Les  images ;    essai  sur  la  memoire  et  l'imagination.  Paris,  1910. 

Pelman,  Carl :     Psychische  Grenzzustande.  Bonn,  1910. 

Pefia  y  Troncoso,  Gonzalo:  El  Dosamantismo  es  la  religion  cientifica  en  oposicion 
al  ocultismo  semita  que  es  una  liga  de  internacional  anarquismo;    la  sintesis 


596  APPENDIX  E 

scientifico-religiosa  del  maestro  Jesus  Ceballos  Dosamantes,  presentada  por 
su  discipulo  Gonzalo  Pefia  y  Troncoso.  Mexico,  1904.* 

Pennsylvania  University :  Seybert  commission  for  investigating  modern  spiritual- 
ism:     Preliminary  report.  Philadelphia,  1887.* 

Per-m-hru :    Book  of  the  Dead.    Ed.  by  E.  A.  W.  Budge.  London,  1908. 

The  Egyptian  Book  of  the  Dead.    Ed.  by  H.  S.  Davis.      New  York,  1894. 

Perronnet,  Claude :     Force  psychique  et  suggestion  mentale.  Paris,  1886.* 

Perry,  Ralph  Barton  :  Present  philosophical  tendencies ;  a  critical  survey  of  nat- 
uralism, idealism,  pragmatism  and  realism ;  together  with  a  synopsis  of  the 
philosophy  of  William  James.  New  York,  1912. 

Perty,  Maximilian :     Die  mystischen  Erscheinungen  der  menschlichen  Natur. 

Leipzig,  1872.* 
Petetin,  Jacques  Henri  Desire  :     filectricite  animale.  Paris,  1808.* 

Pettigrew.    Thomas    Joseph :      On    superstitions    connected    with    the    history    and 

practice  of  medicine.  London,  1844.* 

Pezzani,  Andre :     La  pluralite  des  existences  de  l'ame  conforme  a  la  doctrine  de 

la  pluralite  des  mondes.  Paris,  1872.* 

Pfister,  Christian :     Nicolas  Remy  et  la  sorcellerie  en  Lorraine  a  la  fin  du  XVIe 

siecle.     (In  Revue  Historique,  vol.  93.)  Paris,  1907. 

Pfleideres,  Otto:     Christian  origins.     Tr.  from  the  German  by  D.  A.  Huebsch. 

New  York,  1906. 
Pfungst,  Oskar:     Clever  Hans   (the  horse  of  Mr.  von  Osten)  ;    a  contribution  to 

experimental,  animal,  and  human  psychology.  New  York,  1911. 

Das  Pferd  des  Herrn  von  Osten  (Der  kluge  Hans).  Leipzig,  1907. 

Philalethas,  Eugenius :     Magia  adamica ;    oder,  Das  Alterthum  der  Magie. 

Leipzig,  1735. 
Philips,  A.  J.  P.:     (See  Durand,  J.  P.) 

Phillippe,  Jean:     L'image  mental   (evolution  et  dissolution). 
Phillips,  G.  E. :     Extinction  of  the  ancient  hierarchy. 
La  photographie  transcendentale.     (Librairie  nationale). 
Piat,  Clodius :     Quelques  conferences  sur  l'ame  humaine. 
Pico  della  Mirandola,  Giovanni :     Joannis  Pici  Mirandvlae.  . 

omnia.     2  vols. 
Pieron,  Henri :     Le  probleme  physiologique  du  sommeil. 
Pikler,  Julius :     Die  Stelle  des  Bewusstseins  in  der  Natur. 

Ueber  Theodor  Lipps  Versuch  einer  Theorie  des  Willens.       Leipzig,  1908. 

Pinchbeck,  William  Frederick :  Witchcraft ;  or,  the  art  of  fortune-telling  un- 
veiled. Boston,  1805.* 

Pinkerton,  John :     Collections  of  the  best  voyages  and  travels  in  all  parts  of  the 

world;    Description  of  the  western  islands  of  Scotland.  London,  1808-14. 

Piobb,  Pierre  :     Formulaire  de  haute  magie.  Paris,  1907* 

Pitres,  A.:     Legons  cliniques  sur  l'hysterie  et  l'hypnotisme.  Paris,  1891.* 

and  Regis,  E. :     Les  obsessions  et  les  impulsions.    2  vols.  Paris,  1902. 

Pitzipios,  Iakobos  Georgios  :    Le  romanisme.  Paris,  i860.* 

Planck,    Karl    Christian :      Anthropologie   und   Psychologie   auf  naturwissenschaft- 

licher  Grundlage.  Leipzig,  1874. 

Planetenbuch.  Neuestes  Planetenbiichlein,  worinen  die  sonderbare  Natur  und 
Eigenschaft  der  sieben  Planeten,  dann  der  zwolf  Zeichen  des  Zodiakus, 
(Thierkreises)  und  deren  Einwirkung  auf  das  Menschenleben  und  Gesundheit, 
wie  solches  von  den  Alten  ausgelegt  und  geglaubt  wurde,  beschrieben  und  auf- 
gezeichnet  sind.  Burghausen,  18 — . 


Paris, 
London, 
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I903- 

I905- 

1911.* 

Paris, 

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Opera  quae 
Basileae, 

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Paris, 
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Plumptre,  Charles  Edward :     General  sketch  of  the  history  of  pantheism. 

London,  1878. 

Podmore,  Frank:     Apparitions  and  thought-transference;    an  examination  of  the 
evidence  for  telepathy.  London,  1894.* 

Mesmerism  and  Christian  Science ;    a  short  history  of  mental  healing. 

Philadelphia,  1909.* 

Modern  spiritualism ;    A  history  and  a  criticism.  London,  1902. 

The  naturalization  of  the  supernatural.  New  York,  1908.* 

The  newer  spiritualism.  London,  1910.* 

Studies  in  psychical  research.  New  York,  1897.* 

. —    Telepathic  hallucinations  ;    the  new  view  of  ghosts.  Halifax,  1909.* 

Poincare,  Henri :     Calcul  des  probabilites.  Paris,  1896. 

Science  and  hypothesis.     (Library  of  philosophy,  psychology,  and  scientific 

methods).  New  York,  1905. 

Pollak,  Gustav :     The  hygiene  of  the  soul ;    the  memoir  of  a  physician  and  philos- 
opher. New  York,  1910. 
Porta,   Giovanni   Battista   della :     Coelestis   physiognomoniae  libri  sex. 

Neapoli,  1603.* 
Porta,  Joh.  Baptistae  Portae  Neapolitani :     Magiae  naturalis  libri  viginti. 

Amsterdam,  1664. 
Pound,  Ezra  Loomis  :     Canzoni  &  ripostes.  London,  1913. 

Powell,  James  Henry  :     Spiritualism  ;    its  facts  and  phases.  London,  1864.* 

Poyntz,  Albany :     A  world  of  wonders ;    with  anecdotes  and  opinions  concerning 
popular  superstitions.  London,  1845.* 

Praetorius,  Johannes,  originally  Hans   Schultze :    Storchs  und   Schwalben  Winter- 
Quartier ;    das  ist,  Eine  ungemeine  Vergniigung,  der  curiosen  Gemuther,  etc. 

Leipzig,  1676. 

Pratt,   Antoinette   Marie,   Sister :     The   attitude   of   the    Catholic   church   towards 

witchcraft  and  the  allied  practices  of  sorcery  and  magic.     Washington,  1915. 
Pratt,  James  Bisett:     The  psychology  of  religious  belief.  New  York,   1908. 

Preger,  Johann  Wilhelm:     Geschichte  der  deutschen  Mystik  im  Mittelalter.     Nach 

den  Quellen  untersucht  und  dargestellt.     3  vols,  in  2.  Leipzig,  1874-93. 

Prel,  du.     (See  Du  Prel.) 
Preservation    sociale ;     suppression   des    congregations    religieuses ;     separation   des 

eglises  et  de  l'etat.  Paris,  1897.* 

Preyer,  Thierry  William :     Die  Entdeckung  des  Hypnotismus.     Dargestellt  von  W. 

preyer  Berlin,  1881.* 

Die  Erklarung  des   Gedankenlesens  nebst  Beschreibung  eines  neuen  Ver- 

fahrens  zum  Nachweise  unwillkiirlicher  Bewegungen.  Leipzig,  1886* 

Der   Hypnotismus.  Leipzig,    1890. 

Zur  Psychologie  des  Schreibens.  Hamburg,  1895. 

Price,  Clara  Iza:     The  scribe  of  a  soul.  Seattle,  1901. 

Prince,    John    Dyneley.     Some    Passamaquoddy   witchcraft  tales       (In    American 

Philosophical  Society  Proceedings,  v.  38.)  Philadelphia,   1899. 

Prince,  Leon  Cushing:     The  sense  and  nonsense  of  Christian  Science^ 

'  boston,  191 1. 

Prince,   Morton:     The   dissociation   of  a  personality;    a  biographical  study^ in ^  ab- 
normal psychology.  ' 
My  life  as  a  dissociated  personality,  by  B.  C.  A.     Ed.  by  Mor^onJPr.nce. 

Psychotherapeutics;    a   symposium.  oston'   I9Ia 


* 


598  APPENDIX  E 

Prince,  Morton :  The  unconscious ;  the  fundamentals  of  human  personality,  nor- 
mal and  abnormal.  New  York,   1914. 

Proctor,  Richard  Anthony :  Chance  and  luck ;  a  discussion  of  the  laws  of  luck, 
coincidence,  wagers,  lotteries,  and  the  fallacies  of  gambling.       London,  1889. 

Prohle,  Heinrich  Christoph  Ferdinand  (Ed.)  :  Harzsagen  zum  Teil  in  der  Mun- 
dart  der  Gebirgsbewohner.     2.  Aurl.  Leipzig,  18S6. 

Ptolemaeus,  Claudius :  Ptolemy's  Tetrabiblos,  or  Quadripartite.  Four  books  on 
the  influence  of  the  stars.     Tr.  by  J.  M.  Ashmand.  London,   1822.* 

Purrington,  William  A. :     Manslaughter,  Christian   Science,  and  the  law. 

New  York,  1S08. 

Putnam,  Allen :  Mesmerism,  spiritualism,  witchcraft,  and  miracle ;  a  brief  treat- 
ise showing  that  mesmerism  is  a  key  which  will  unlock  many  chambers  of 
mystery.  Boston,   1858.* 

Putnam,  James  Jackson:     Human  motives.  Boston,   1915. 

Puysegur,  Armand  Marie  Jacques  de  Chasteney,  Marquis  de :  Memoires  pour 
servir  a  l'histoire   et   l'etablissement   du   magnetisme   animal.       Paris,    1S09.* 

Recherches,  experiences,  et  observations  physiologiques  sur  l'homme  dans 

l'etat   de   somnambulisme   naturel.  Paris,    181 1* 

Quackenbos,  John  Duncan:  Body  and  spirit;  an  inquiry  into  the  subconscious; 
based  upon  twelve  thousand  experiences  in  the  author's  practice. 

New  York,  1916. 

—     Hypnotic  therapeutics.  New   York,   1908.* 

Hypnotism  in  mental  and  moral  culture.  New  York,  1900. 


Quatrefages,  Armand  de :     The  human  species.  New  York,   1890. 

Quincy,   Josiah   Phillips:     The   Peckster   professorship.  Boston,    1888.* 

Quintilianus,  Marcus  Fabius :  The  tenth  declamation  of  (Pseudo)  Quintilian; 
a  lecture  ...  by  R.  Ellis.  London,   191 I.* 

Radcliffe,  John  Netten:  Fiends,  ghosts,  and  sprites;  including  an  account  of  the 
origin  and  nature  of  belief  in  the  supernatural.  London,   1854.* 

Radestock,  Paul :  Schlaf  und  Traum ;  eine  physiologisch-psychologische  Unter- 
suchung.  Leipzig,  1879. 

Ramsdell,  Sarah  A.:  Science  made  easy  by  Theodore  Parker;  through  the  me- 
diumship   of   S.   A.   Ramsdell.  Philadelphia,   1882. 

Rand,  Benjamin:  The  classical  psychologists;  selections  illustrating  psychology 
from  Anaxagoras  to  Wundt.  Boston,   1912. 

Randolph,  Paschal  Beverly:  Dealings  with  the  dead;  the  human  soul,  its  migra- 
tions, and  its  transmigrations.  Utica,  1861-2. 

Seership !    The  magnetic  mirror ;    a  practical  guide  to   those  who  aspire 

to  clairvoyance-absolute.  .  .  .  Toledo,  Ohio,  1875.* 

Ranke,  Gotthilf  Johannes  Friedrich:     Die  deutschen  Volkssagen.     Miinchen,   1910. 

Ranley  (Ed.)  :  Discussion  among  250  theological  inquirers  on  the  unity,  duality, 
and  trinity  of  the  Godhead.  London,  1864.* 

Ranschburg,  Paul:  Das  kranke  Gedachtnis ;  Ergebnisse  und  Methoden  dor  ex- 
perimentellen  Erforschung  der  alltaglichen  Falschleistungen  und  der  Patho- 
logie  des  Gediichtnisses.  Leipzig,  191 1. 

Raoul  Gineste   (Pseud.)      (See  Augier,  Adolphe  Clovis.) 

Rauch,  Christian:  Die  walische,  franzosische  und  deutsche  Bearbeitung  der 
Iweinsage.  Berlin,  1S69. 

Raue,  C.  G. :  Psychology  as  a  natural  science  applied  to  the  solution  of  occult 
psychic  phenomena.  (Follows  the  psychology  of  Beneke,  accepts  thought- 
transference,  clairvoyance  of  the  mesmeric  subject,  etc.)       Philadelphia,  1889. 


BOOKS    IN    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    LIBRARY  599 

Raupert,  John   Godfrey  Ferdinand:     The   dangers  of  spiritualism;    being   records 
of  personal  experiences,  with  notes  and  comments  and  five  illustrations. 
3d  ed.  London,  1914.* 

Modern  spiritism;    a  critical  examination  of  its  phenomena,  character,  and 

teaching,  in  the  light  of  the  known  facts.    3d  ed.  St.  Louis,  Mo.,  1912.* 

Raymond,  Rossiter  Worthington :  The  divining  rod.  (In  Transactions  American 
Institute  of  Mining  Engineers.)  New  York,  1883. 

Read,  Carveth :     Metaphysics  of  nature.  London,  1905. 

Redgrove,  Herbert  Stanley :  Alchemy,  ancient  and  modern ;  being  a  brief  account 
of  the  alchemistic  doctrines,  and  their  relations,  to  mysticism  on  the  one 
hand,  and  to  recent  discoveries  in  physical  science  on  the  other  hand ;  to- 
gether with  some  particulars  regarding  the  lives  and  teachings  of  the  most 
noted  alchemists;    with  16  full-page  illustrations.  London,  191 1.* 

Redman,  George  A. :    Mystic  hours ;    or,  Spiritual  experiences.      New  York,  1859.* 

Reese,  David  Meredith:  Humbugs  of  New  York;  being  a  remonstrance  against 
popular  delusion,  whether  in  science,  philosophy,  or  religion. 

New  York,  1838.* 

Phrenology  known  by  its  fruits ;   being  a  review  of  Doctor  Brigham's  late 

work  entitled  "Observations  on  the  influence  of  religion  upon  the  health  and 
physical  welfare  of  mankind."  New  York,  1836.* 

Reformador :  Le  Professeur  Lombrose  et  le  spiritisme ;  analyse  faite  par  le  "Re- 
formador."  Rio  Janeiro,  1893.* 

Regnault,  Felix  :     Hypnotisme,  religion.  Paris,  1897.* 

Reichel,  Willy :     Kreuz  und  quer  durch  die  Welt ;    okkultistische  Reiseerlebnisse. 

Leipzig,  1906.* 

Reichenbach,  Karl  Ludwig  Friedrich,  Freiherr  von :  Aphorismcn  fiber  Sensitivitat 
und  Od.  Wien,  1866* 

Die   odische    Lobe   und    einige    Bewegungserscheinungen    als    neuentdeckte 

Formen  des  odischen  Princips  in  der  Natur.  Wien,  1867.* 

Physico-physiological  researches  on  the  dynamics  of  magnetism,  electricity, 

heat,  light,  crystallization,  and  chemism  in  their  relation  to  vital  force.     Tr. 
by  John  Ashburner.  London,  1851* 

Physicalisch-physiologische    Untersuchungen  fiber  die  Dynamide  des  Mag- 

netismus   der   Elektricitat,   der  Warme,   des   Lichtes,   der   Kristallisation,   des 
Chemismus  in  ihren  Beziehungen  zur  Lebenskraft.  Braunschweig,  1849.* 

Der  sensitive  Mensch  und  sein  Verhalten  zum  Ode.     2  vols. 

Stuttgart,  1854-55.* 

Reimers,  Christian :     The  trapped  medium ;    or,  Two  clever  sceptics. 

London,  1877.* 

Reinach,  Salomon  :     Cults,  myths,  and  religions.  London,  1912. 

Religious  systems  of  the  world :  a  contribution  to  the  study  of  comparative  re- 
ligion;   a  collection  of  addresses  delivered  at  South  Place  Institute. 

London,  1902. 

Rells,  Edmund  W.  (Pseud.)  :     (See  Dessoir,  Max). 

Remy,  M. :  Spirites  et  illusionnistes ;  conferences  faites  a  la  Chambre  syndicate 
des  Illusionnistes  de  France.  Paris,  1911.* 

Renwick,  Thomas :  The  continuation  of  the  narrative  of  Miss  Margaret  M'Avoy's 
case.     (A  blind  girl  showing  hyperaesthesia).  London,  1820.* 

A  narrative  of  the  case  of  Miss  Margaret  McAvoy.  London,  1817.* 

Revel   L  :    Les  mystiques  devant  la  science;   ou,  Essai  sur  le  mysticisme  universel. 

Paris,  1903.* 

Reynaud,  Jean :    Terre  et  ciel.    4e  ed.  Paris,  1864* 

The  supernatural  in  nature.  London,  1878* 


600 


APPENDIX   E 


Rhodes,  Geoffrey  (Ed.):  Medicine  and  the  church;  being  a  series  of  studies  on 
the  relationship  between  the  practice  of  medicine  and  the  church's  ministry 
to  the  sick,  by  Sir  Clifford  Allbutt,  A.  W.  Robinson,  Charles  Buttar,  Stephen 
Paget,  Bishop  of  Bloemfontein,  Hon.  Sydney  Holland,  Prebendary  Fausset, 
Jane  Walker,  T.  B.  Hyslop,  Ellis  Roberts,  M.  Carta  Sturge,  H.  G.  G.  Mac- 
kenzie. Ed.,  with  an  introduction  by  Geoffrey  Rhodes,  with  a  foreword  by 
the  Lord  Bishop  of  Winchester.  London,  1910.* 

Rhys,  John:     Celtic  folklore,  Welsh  and  Manx.     2  vols.  Oxford,  1 901 

Ribot,  Theodule  Armand :  Diseases  of  memory ;  an  essay  in  the  positive  psychol- 
ogy.   Tr.  by  W.  H.  Smith.  New  York,  1890 

The  diseases  of  personality.    2d  ed.    2  copies.  Chicago,  1895 

The  diseases  of  the  will.    Tr.  by  Snell.  Chicago,  1894. 

Essay  on  the  creative  imagination.    Tr.  by  A.  H.  N.  Baron.     Chicago,  1906 

Rice,  Ervin  Alvin :    Why  are  we  here?    An  answer.    3d  ed.  Chicago,  1913 

Richer,  Paul :     Etudes  cliniques  sur  la  grande  hysterie ;    ou,  hystero-epilepsie. 

Paris,  1885 
Richet,  Charles  Robert :     Experimented   Studien  auf  dem  Gebiete  der  Gedanken- 
iibertragung  und  des  sogenannten  Hellsehens.     Deutsche  Ausg.  von  Schrenck- 
Notzing.  Stuttgart,  1891* 

Richmond,  Almon  Benson :  What  I  saw  at  Cassadaga  Lake ;  a  review  of  the  Sey- 
bert  commissioners'  report.  Boston,  1888.* 

Richmond,  Mrs.  Cora  L.  V.  Scott :  Hatch  Tappan ;  Mediumship-Oration  de- 
livered under  spirit  influence  in  the  Royal  music  hall,  London. 

London,  1873.* 

Hatch  Tappan :     Spiritualism  as  a  science ;    and  spiritualism  as  a  religion ; 

oration  delivered  under  spirit  influence,  St.  George's  Hall,  London. 

London,  1873.* 

Spiritualism ;  its  advantages  to  the  present  and  future  life ;  oration  deliv- 
ered under  spirit  influence,  Brighton.  London,  1874.* 

What    great    teacher   has    produced   the   most    potent   effect   upon    society, 

and  why?     Oration  delivered  under  spirit  influence,  St.  George's  Hall,  Lon- 
don. London,  1873.* 

Richmond,  Wilfrid:     An  essay  on  personality  as  a  philosophical  principle. 

London,  1900. 

Rider,  Fremont:  Are  the  dead  alive?  The  problem  of  physical  research  that  the 
world's  leading  scientists  are  trying  to  solve,  and  the  progress  they  have 
made ;  with  statements  of  their  personal  belief  by  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  Andrew 
Lang,  Count  Leo  Tolstoi,  .  .  .  and  others.  New  York,  1909.* 

Rieger,  Konrad :  Der  Hypnotismus.  Psychiatrische  Beitrage  zur  Kenntnis  der 
sogenannten  Hypnotischen  Zustande.  Jena,  1884.* 

Ringier,  Georg :     Erfolge  des  therapeutischen  Hypnotismus  in  der  Landpraxis. 

Miinchen,  1891.* 

Rio,  Martin  Antoine  del :  Disqvisitionvm  magicarvm  libri  sex.  .  .  .  Hac  Veneta, 
&  postrema  ed.  omnium  maxime  elaborate.  Venetiis,  1640. 

Rivail,  Hippolyte  Leon  Denizard :  Le  ciel  et  l'enfer ;  ou,  La  justice  divine  selon  le 
spiritisme;  par  Allan  Kardec  (Pseud.).  5e  ed.  Bound  with  this  is:  De 
l'esprit  et  de  l'homme  comme  etre  spirituel,  by  Chauncey  Giles.      Paris,  18 — .* 

Le  livre  des  esprits.    47e  ed.  Paris,  1865.* 

Spiritisme  experimental ;    le  livre  des  mediums.  Paris,  1863. 

Spiritualist  philosophy;    the  spirits'  book,  by  Allan  Kardec  (Pseud.).     Tr. 

by  A.  Blackwell.  London,  1898. 

Riviere   Joseph  (Tr.)  :     Recueil  de  contes  populaires  de  la  Kabvlie  du  Djurdjura. 

Paris,  1882. 


BOOKS    IN    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    LIBRARY  601 

Robbins,  Anne  Manning:     Both  sides  of  the  veil;    a  personal  experience. 

Boston,  191 1.* 

Robbins,  Thomas  (Comp.)  :     A  view  of  all  religions.    2d  ed.  Hartford,  1824. 

Robert-Houdin,  Jean  Eugene :     Confidences  of  Robert  Houdin.    2  vols.    2d  ed. 

Paris,  1861. 

Roberts,   Jonathan   M.:     The   crusade   against   spiritualism;     the   Katie   King   im- 
broglio.    (Clippings  from  Mind  and  Matter,    vol.2).  n.  p.,  i88l(  ?).* 

Antiquity  unveiled ;    ancient  voices   from   the   spirit   realms   disclosed   the 

most  startling  revelations  proving  Christianity  to  be  of  heathen  origin. 

Philadelphia,  1892.* 
Robinson,  James  H. :     The  great  comet  of  1680.  Northfield,  Minn.,  1916. 

Rochas  d'Aiglun,  Eugene  Auguste  Albert  de :     L'envoutement.  Paris,  1893.* 

Les  etats  supernciels  de  l'hypnose.  Paris,  1893.* 

L'exteriorisation   de  la   motricite;    recueil   d'experiences  et   d'observations. 

Paris,  1896.* 

L'exteriorisation  de  la  sensibilite.  2e  ed.  Paris,  1895.* 

Les  forces  non  definies ;    recherches  historiques  et  experimentales. 

Paris,  1887* 

Les  frontieres  de  la  science.    2  v.  in  I.  Paris,  1902-04.* 

La   science   dans  l'antiquite.  Paris,   1883.* 

Les  vies  successives.  Paris,  191 1.* 

Rochholz,    Ernst   Ludwig:     Deutscher   Glaube   und   Brauch   im   Spiegel   der   heid- 

nischen  Vorzeit.     2  vols.  Berlin,  1867. 

Schweizersagen  aus  dem  Aargau.  Aarau,  1856. 

Rogers,  Arthur  Kenyon :     The  parallelism  of  mind  and  body  from  the  standpoint 

of  metaphysics.  Chicago,  1899. 

Rogers,    Edward    Coit :     Philosophy   of  mysterious   agents,   human   and   mundane ; 

or,  The  dynamic  laws  &  relations  of  man.  Boston,  1853. 

Rosencreutzer,  Marcus  Friedrich :     Astronomia  inferior;    oder,  Septem  planetarum 

terrestrium  pagyrica  recensio.  Niirnberg,  1646. 

Rossi,  Pascal:     Les  suggesteurs  et  la  foule.     Tr.  de  l'italien  par  M.  le  Professeur 

Cundari.     Preface  de  M.  le  Professeur  Henri  Morselli.  Paris,  1907. 

Rossi  de  Giustiniani :     Le  spiritualisme  dans  l'histoire.  Paris,  1881.* 

Rost,  Carl  Wilhelm  Felix   (Ed.)  :     Confirmirter  und  concentrirter  chymischer  Zin- 

nober-Particular-Zeiger.  Niirnberg,  1760.* 

Roth,  Mathias:     The  physiological  effects  of  artificial  sleep;    with  some  notes  on 

the  treatment  by  suggestion.  London,  1887.* 

Roth,  Walter  Edmund:     Superstition,  magic  and  medicine.  Brisbane,   1903. 

Rousseau,  E.  E. :     De  la  folie  a  l'epoque  de  la  puberte.  Paris,  1857. 

Rouxel  (Pseud.)  :     Histoire  et  philosophic  de  mangetisme.  Paris,  1895.* 

Rapports  du  magnetisme  et  du  spiritisme.  Paris,  1892* 

Royal  Society  of  London:     Miscellanea  curiosa;    containing  a  collection  of  some 

of  the  principal  phenomena  in  nature.     3  vols.  London,  1707-8. 

Royce,  Josiah :     The  problem  of  Christianity ;    lectures  delivered  at  the  Lowell  In- 
stitute, in  Boston,  and  at  Manchester  College,  Oxford.    2  vols. 

New  York,  1913. 

William  James  and  other  essays  on  the  philosophy  of  life. 

New  York,  1911. 

Riidiger,    Georg   Heinrich :     Zauber   und   Aberglaube   in    den   englisch-schottischen 

Volksballaden.  Halle,  1907. 

Ruland,  Wilhelm  :     Legends  of  the  Rhine.  Cologne,  1906. 


602  APPENDIX  E 

Runnalls,  Claude  Bertram :  Suggestions  for  conducting  a  church  class  in  psycho- 
therapy. Milwaukee,  1915. 

Rush,  Benj. :  Medical  inquiries  and  observations  upon  the  diseases  of  the  mind. 
4th  ed.  Philadelphia,  1830. 

Ruskin,  John :  Fors  clavigera ;  letters  to  the  workmen  and  labourers  of  Great 
Britain.  London,  1903-12. 

Russell,  Nellie  Naomi:     Gleanings  from  Chinese  folklore.  New  York,  1915. 

Rydberg,  Viktor :     The  magic  of  the  middle  ages.     Tr.  by  A.  H.  Edgren. 

New  York,  1879. 

Sacchi,    Alessantro :     Instituzioni    di    scienza    occulta.  Torino,    1906.* 

Sadducismus  debellatus ;  or,  A  true  narrative  of  the  sorceries  and  witchcrafts  ex- 
ercised by  the  devil  and  his  instruments  upon  Mrs.  Christian  Snaw  .  .  . 
from  Aug.  1696  to  Apr.  1697.  London,  1698.* 

Sage,  M. :  Madame  Piper  et  la  Societe  anglo-americaine  pour  les  recherches 
psychiques.     Preface  de  Camille  Flammarion.  Paris,   1902.* 

Saint  Germain,  Comte  de   (Pseud.).     (See  Valcourt-Vermont,  Edgar  de.) 

Saintyves,  P.   (Pseud.).     (See  Nourry,  E.) 

Salverte,  Anne  Joseph  Eusebe  Baconniere :  The  occult  sciences;  the  philosophy 
of  magic,  prodigies  and  apparent  miracles.  New  Y'ork,  1847. 4 

Des  sciences  occultes ;    ou,  Essai  sur  la  magie,  les  prodiges  et  les  miracles ; 

2  vols.  Paris,   1829.* 

Sanctis,  Sante  de :     I  sogni ;    studi  psichologici  e  clinici  di  tin  alienista. 

Torino,   1899. 

Die  Traume  .  .  .  Halle.  1891. 


Sandby,  George:     Mesmerism  and  its  opponents.     2d  ed.  London,   1848.* 

Sanders,     Frederick     Williams :     Religio     doctoris ;      meditations     upon     life     and 

thought.  Boston,  C1913. 

Santa-Anna  Nery,  Frederico  Jose  de  :     Folk-lore  bresilien.  Paris,  1889. 

Santanelli   (Pseud.)      (See  Loryea,  James  Hawthorne.) 
Sapte,  William :     An  indignation  meeting  of  the  spirits  and  other  tales. 

London,   1883.* 
Sargent,   Epes :     Communications   from  another  world ;    an  abridgment   of  "Plan- 

chette ;    or,  The  despair  of  science."  Melbourne,   1869.* 

Planchette  ;  or.  The  despair  of  science ;  a  full  account  of  modern  spirit- 
ualism, its  phenomena,  and  the  various  theories  regarding  it.       Boston,  1869. 

The  proof  palpable  of  immortality;    being  an  account  of  the  materialization 

phenomena  of  modern  spiritualism.  Boston.   1875.* 

Savage,  George  Henry :  The  Harveian  oration  on  experimental  psychology  and 
hypnotism,  delivered  before  the  Royal  college  of  physicians  of  London,  Oc- 
tober 18,  1909.  London,  1909.* 

Savage.  Minot  Judson :     Can  telepathy  explain?  New  Y'ork,  1903.* 

Psychics;    facts  and  theories.     2  copies.  Boston,  1893,  1905-* 

Savill,  Thomas  Dixon :     Clinical  lectures  on  neurasthenia.  New  York,  1908. 

Sceptic  :     An  exposition  of  spiritualism  comprising  2  series  of  letters  and  a  review 

of  the  "Spiritual  magazine"   No.  20   (introd.  &  notes),  as  published  in   the 

Star  and  Dial ;    with  introduction,  notes,  and  appendix.  London,  1862. 

Schaffer,  Karl :     Suggestion  und  Reflex.  Jena,  1895.* 

Schambach,  Georg :     Die  plattdeutschen   Sprichworter  der  Fiirstenthumer   Gottin- 

gen  und  Grubenhagen.  Gottingen,  1851. 

und  Miiller,  Wilhelm  (Ed.)  :     Niedersachsische  Sagen  und  Marchen. 

Gottingen,  1855. 


BOOKS    IN    PSYCHICAL    RESEARCH    LIBRARY  603 

Scheler,  Max  F. :     Die  transzendentale  und  die  psychologische  Methode. 

Leipzig,  1900. 

Schiller,  Ferdinand  Canning  Scott :     Humanism ;    philosophical  essays. 

London,  1903. 

Riddles   of  the  sphinx.  London,   1912.* 

2d  ed.  New  York,  1894.* 

3d  ed.  New  York,  1910  * 

Schindler,  Heinrich  Bruno:     Der  Aberglaube  des  Mittelalters.  Breslau,   1858* 

Das  magische  Geistesleben ;    ein  Beitrag  zur  Psychologic       Breslau,  1857.* 

Schlegel,  Johann   Samuel   Benedikt :     Tagebuch  seines,  mit  J.  G.   Schrepfer  geflo- 

genen  Umgangs.  Berlin,   1806.* 

Schmidkunz,    Hans :     Psvchologie   der    Suggestion  .  .  .  mit   .  .  .  Erganzungen   von 

F.  C.  Gerster.  Stuttgart,  1892. 

Schmidt,  Johann  Georg :     Die  gestriegelte  Rockenphilosophia.     4  vols,  in   1. 

Chemnitz,  1707-09. 

Schneidemuhl.    Georg:     Handschrift    und    Charakter ;     ein  Lehrbuch    der    Hand- 

schriftenbeurtheilung.  Leipzig,   191 1. 

Schneider,    Georg    Heinrich:     Die    psychologische    Ursache  der    hypnotischen    Er- 

scheinungen.  Leipzig,  1880* 

Schonwerth,  Franz  Xaver  von:     Aus  der  Oberpfalz ;    Sitten  und  Sagen.     3  v. 

Augsburg,  1857. 

Schofield,  Alfred  Tavlor :     The  force  of  mind;    or,  The  mental  factor  in  medicine. 

New  York,  1908.* 

Mental  and  spiritual  health.  New  York,  1910.* 

The  springs  of  character.  London,  1901.* 

The  unconscious  mind.     4th  ed.  New  York,  1908* 

Unconscious  therapeutics;    or.  The  personality  of  the  physician. 

Philadelphia,  1906. 

Scholz,  Ludwig:     Anomale  Kinder.  Berlin,  1912. 

Schreber,  Daniel  Paul :  Denkwurdigkeiten  eines  Nervenkranken  nebst  Nachtragen 
und  einem  Anhang.  Leipzig,  1903. 

Schrenck  von  Notzing.  Albert  Philibert  Franz:  Die  Bedeutung  narkotischer  Mit- 
tel  fiir  den  Hypnotismus.  Leipzig,  1893* 

Ein  Beitrag  zur  psychischen  und  suggestiven  Behandlung  der  Neuras- 
thenic Berlin,  1894.* 

Materialisationsphaenomene ;    ein  Beitrag  zur  Erforschung  der  mediumis- 

tischen  Teleplastic  Munchen,  1914* 

Die  Phanomene  des  Mediums  Linda  Gazerra.  Leipzig,  1912* 

Schroder.   Richard:     Glaube  und   Aberglaube   in   den  altfranzosischen   Dichtungen. 

Hanover,   1886. 

Schron,  Otto  von:     Biologia  minerale;    letters  del  S.  al  Prof.  G.  B.  Milesi. 

Bologna,  1901* 

Schultz,  Paul:     Gehirn  und  Seek.  Leipzig,  1906. 

Scot,  Reginald :     The  discoverie  of  witchcraft  .  .  .  being  a  reprint  of  the  first  edi- 
tion published  in  1584.  London,  1886. 
Scott,  Sir  Walter:     Letters  on  demonology  and  witchcraft.              New  York,  1887. 

The  existence  of  evil  spirits  proved ;  and  their  agency,  particularly  in  rela- 
tion to  the  human  race,  explained  and  illustrated.  London,  1853* 

Seafield,  Frank,  M.  A.   (Pseud.).     (See  Grant,  Alexander  Henley.) 
Seashore.   Carl   Emil   and   Williams.   Mabel   Clare:     An    illusion    of  length.      (In 
Iowa  University  Studies  in  psychology,  v.  3.)  Iowa  City,  1002. 


604 


APPENDIX  E 


Seashore,  Carl  Emil  and  Williams,  Mabel  Claire:  Measurements  of  illusions  and 
hallucinations  in  normal  life.  (In  Yale  psychological  laboratory  Studies 
voL  3-)  Iowa  City,  1895' 

Psychology  in  daily  life.  New  York,  1913. 

Sebillot,  Paul :     Le  folk-lore  de  France.    4  vols.  Paris,  1904-07. 

Seeley,  Sir  John  Robert:     Natural  religion.  Boston,  1886. 

Seelmann,  Wilhelm  (Ed.):     Niederdeutsches  Reimbiichlein ;    eine  Spruchsammlung 

des  sechzehnten  Jahrhunderts.  Xorden,  1S85. 

Seguin,  Edward:     Idiocy  and  its  treatment  by  the  physiological  method. 

Albany,  1907. 

Traitement  moral,  hygiene  et  education  des  idiots,  et  des  autres  enfants 

arrieres   ou   retardes   dans   leur   developpement,     agites    de   mouvements    in- 
volontaires  debiles,  muets  non-sourds,  begues,  etc.  Paris,  1906. 

Seifart,  Karl  (Ed.)  :  Sagen,  Marchen,  Schwanke  und  Gebrauche  aus  Stadt  und 
Stift  Hildesheim.  Gottingen,  1854. 

Senillosa,  Felipe :     Concordancia  del  espiritismo  con  la  ciencia.    2  vols. 

Buenos  Aires,  1891.* 
Sergi,  Giuseppi :     La  psiche  nei  fenomeni  della  vita.  Torino,  1901.* 

La   psychologie  physiologique.     Tr.  par   M.   Mouton.     Ed.   francaise,   rev., 

corr.  et  augm.  Paris,  1888.* 

Sermyn,  W.  C.  de :  Philosophic  scientifique ;  contribution  a  l'etude  de  certaines 
facultes  cerebrales  meconnues.  Lausanne,  1910.* 

Sexton,  George :     The  claims  of  modern  spiritualism  upon  public  attention. 

London,  1873.* 

A  defence  of  modern  spiritualism.  London,  1874.* 

If  a  man  die  shall  he  live  again?     Spiritualism  and  its  critics. 

London,   1874.* 

Spirit-mediums  and  conjurers.  London,   1873.* 

Seymour,  St.  John  Drelincourt :     Irish  witchcraft  and  demonology.     Dublin,  1913.* 
Shaler,  Nathaniel  Southgate :     The  individual ;   a  study  of  life  and  death.     3  copies. 

New  York,  1901. 

Shastri,  Prabhu  Dutt :     The  conception  of  freedom  in  Hegel,  Bergson  and  Indian 

philosophy.  Calcutta,  1914. 

Shaw,  Charles  Gray :    The  ego  and  its  place  in  the  world.  London,  1913. 

Sherlock,  E.  B. :     The  feeble-minded ;    a  guide  to  study  and  practice. 

London,   191 1. 

Sidgwick,  Alfred :     Fallacies ;    A  view  of  logic  from  the  practical  side. 

New  York,  1890. 

Sidgwick,  Arthur :     Henry  Sidgwick ;    a  memoir  by  A.  S.  and  E.  M.  S. 

London,  1906.* 

Sidis,  Boris :     The  causation  and  treatment  of  psychopathic  diseases. 

Boston,  C1916. 

Experimental  study  of  sleep.  Boston,  1909. 

The  foundations  of  normal  and  abnormal  psychology.  Boston,  1914. 

The  psychology  of  suggestion ;    a  research  into  the  subconscious  nature  of 

man  and  society.  New  York,  1898. 

Psychopathological  researches  in  mental  dissociation.         New  York,   1902. 

and  Goodhart,  Simon  P.:  Multiple  personality;  an  experimental  investi- 
gation into  the  nature  of  human  individuality.  New  York,  1905. 

Sieben  Schwaben :  Geschichte  von  den  sieben  Schwaben,  nebst  einigen  schwabi- 
schen  Volksliedern.  Leipzig,  1838. 

Sierke  Eugen :  Schwarmer  und  Schwindler  zu  Ende  des  achtzehnten  Jahrhun- 
derts. Leipzig,  1874. 


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Sigerus,    Robert:      Die    Telepathie ;     Telasthesie,    Telenergie,    Mental    Suggestion, 
magische  Gedankeniibertragung,  usw.  Leipzig,  191 1.* 

Simeon,  ben  Yochai,   (rabbi,  2d  cent.).     (See  Cabala). 

Simms,   Joseph:     Physiognomy   illustrated;     nature's    revelations    of   character      3 
coPies-  New  York,  1889. 

Simon,  Theodor :     Leib  und  Seele.  Gottingen,   1894. 

Simrock,  Karl  Joseph  (Comp.)  :     Die  deutschen  Sprichworter  gesammelt. 

Frankfurt  am  Main,  1846. 

Sinnett,  Alfred  Percy:     Karma;    a  novel.  London,  1891.* 

The  occult  world.  London,  1881.* 

Sizer,  Nelson :     How  to  teach,  according  to  temperament  and  mental  development ; 

or,  Phrenology  in  the  school  room  and  the  family.  New  York,  1877. 

Skeat,    Walter   Williams :      Early   English   proverbs   chiefly   of  the   thirteenth   and 

fourteenth  centuries.  Oxford,   1916. 

Malay  magic;    an  introduction  to  the  folklore  and  popular  religion  of  the 

Malay  Peninsula.  London,  1900. 

Slattery,  Chas.  Lewis :     Life  beyond  life ;    a  study  of  immortality.       London,  1907. 
Slosson,  Edward  E. :     Major  prophets  of  today.  Boston,  1914. 

Smith,  Arthur  Henderson :     Proverbs  and  common  sayings  from  the  Chinese,  to- 
gether with   much  related  and  unrelated  matter,  interspersed  with  observa- 
tions on  Chinese  things-in-general.  Shanghai,   1902. 
Smith,  Mintern  P. :     Altar  fires  relighted ;    a  study  of  modern  religious  tendencies 
from  the  standpoint  of  a  lay  observer,  by  Stephen  Hasbrouck   (Pseud.). 

New  York,  191 1. 
Smith,  Samuel  George:     Religion  in  the  making;   a  study  in  Biblical  sociology. 

New  York,  1910.* 
Smith,  Stephen:    Who  is  insane?  New  York,  1916. 

Smyth,  John  Paterson :     Our  Bible  in  the  making  as  seen  by  modern  research. 

London,  1914.* 
Snow,   Herman :     Spirit-intercourse ;    containing  incidents  of  personal  experience 
while  investigating  the  new  phenomena  of  spirit  thought  and  action. 

Boston,  1853* 
Societe  d'etudes  psychiques  de  Geneve :    Autour  "des  Indes  a  la  planete  Mars." 

Geneve,   1901.* 
Society  for  Psychical  Research :    Library  catalogue.     1905 ;    supplementary,  1906-12. 

London,  n.  d. 
Soddy,  Frederick  :     Matter  and  energy.  New  York,  1912. 

Sollier,  Paul :     Psychologie  de  l'idiot  et  de  l'imbecile.  Paris,  1901. 

Troubles  de  la  memoire.  Paris,  1892. 

Solov'ev,  Vsevolod  Sergyeevich :  A  modern  priestess  of  Isis ;  abridged  and  trans- 
lated on  behalf  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research  by  Walter  Leaf. 

London,  1895.* 

Some  account  of  Dr.  Gall's  new  theory  of  physiognomy  founded  upon  the  anat- 
omy and  physiology  of  the  brain  and  the  form  of  the  skull.      London,  1807.* 

Sommer,  Hugo:  Ueber  das  Wesen  und  die  Bedeutung  der  menschlichen  Freiheit 
und  deren  moderne  Wildersacher.    2.  Aufl.  Berlin,  1885. 

Sommer,  Robert:  Kriminalpsychologie  und  strafrechtliche  Psychopathologie  auf 
naturwissenschaftlicher  Grundlage.  Leipzig,   1904. 

Lehrbuch  der  psychopathologischen  Untersuchungsmethoden.     Berlin,  1899. 

Spence,  Lewis:     The  mythologies  of  ancient  Mexico  and  Peru.  Chicago,  1907. 

'  The  myths  of  Mexico  and  Peru.  London,  1913. 

Spicer,  Henry :     Sights  and  sounds ;    the  mystery  of  the  day ;   comprising  an  entire 

history  of  the  American   "spirit"  manifestations.  London,   1853* 


606  APPENDIX  E 

Spiess,  Camille :     ...  Lame  et  le  corps  au  point  de  vue  bio-physiologique. 

Geneve,  1906.* 
Spiess,    Moritz :      Aberglaube,    Sitten   und   Gebrauche    des    sachsischen   Obererzge- 

birges.  Dresden,   1862. 

Spiritual   communications,  etc.,   through   the   mediumship  of   Elizabeth   Armstrong, 

by  S.  G.  W.  Melbourne,  1869. 

Spiritualism ;    narrative  of  facts  observed.  Glasgow,   1864.* 

Spiritualism  shown  as  it  is.     (From  the  Boston  Courier).  Boston,  1859. 

Spitta,  Heinrich :     Die  Schlaf-  und  Traumzustande  der  menschlichen  Seele.    2.  Aufl. 

Freiburg,  1892.* 

Spurzheim,  Johann  Gaspar :  Phrenology ;  or,  The  doctrine  of  the  mental  phe- 
nomena.    Introduction  by  Cyrus  Elder.  Philadelphia,  1908. 

Squire,  Charles:  The  mythology  of  the  British  islands;  an  introduction  to  Celtic 
myth,  legend,  poetry,  and  romance.  London,  1905. 

Stallo,  Jchn  Berhard  :     The  concepts  and  theories  of  modern  physics. 

New  York,  1891. 

Stanford,  Thomas  Welton  (Comp.)  :  T.  W.  Stanford's  circle,  Melbourne;  lec- 
tures ;  psychic  investigation  at  Thomas  Welton  Stanford's  circle,  Melbourne, 
Oct.  20,  1902 — Dec.  1913.     (In  typewritten  manuscript).     10  vols. 

Melbourne,   1902-13.* 

Stanton,  Horace  Coffin ;  Telepathy  of  the  celestial  world ;  psychic  phenomena 
here  but  foreshadowings  of  our  transcendent  faculties  hereafter;  Evidences 
from  psychology  and  Scripture  that  the  celestials  can  instantaneously  and 
freely  communicate  across  distance  indefinitely  great.  New  York,  C1913.* 

Stanton,  Mary  Olmsted ;  System  of  practical  and  scientific  physiognomy ;  or, 
How  to  read  faces.     2  vols.  Philadelphia,   1890. 

Starrett,  Danvill  William :  Discoveries  which  make  mental  therapeutics  and  the 
transmission  of  mental  communications  an  exact  science.     2  copies. 

Oakland,  1908. 

The  last  lap;    or,  "Outside  intelligence"  explained.  Bi  ston,  1915. 

Stead,  Estelle  W. :     My  father;    personal  and  spiritual  reminiscences. 

London,  1913. 

Stead,  William  Thomas:  After  death;  a  personal  narrative;  new  and  enl.  ed.  of 
"Letters  from  Julia."  London,   1914* 

Bridging  the  river  of  death.     (In  his  pamphlets  on  spiritualism). 

Melbourne,  1910* 

How  I  know  the  dead  return  ...  a  record  of  personal  experiences.      ( In 

his  pamphlets  on  spiritualism).  Melbourne,  1909.* 

Letters  from  Julia.     (See  After  death). 

■ ■     Real  ghost  stories.  London,  1897.* 

Steiner,  Karl  Joseph :  Die  Tierwelt  nach  ihrer  Stellung  in  Mythologie  und  Volks- 
glauben,  in  Sitte  und  Sage,  in  Geschichte  und  Litteratur,  im  Sprichwort  und 
Volksfest.  Gotha,  1891. 

Steiner,  Rudolf:  Die  Geheimwissenschaft  im  Umriss.  4  vielfach  erganzte  und 
erweiterte  Aufl.  Leipzig,  1913* 

Theosophie;    Einfiihrung  in  iibersinnliche  Welterkenntnis  und   Menschen- 

bestimmung.     Von  Dr.  Rudolf  Steiner.     Durchgesehene  und  erweiterte  Aufl. 

Leipzig,  1914.* 

Stephen,  Sir  Harry  Lushington :  The  Suffolk  witches.  (In  state  trials,  political 
and  social;    selected  and  ed.  by  H.  L.  Stephen.     Vol.  3-4,  second  series). 

New  York,  1899- 1902. 

Stern,  Louis  William :  Die  differentielle  Psychologie  in  ihren  methodischen 
Grundlagen.  Leipzig,  191 1. 


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Stern,  Louis  William:  Person  und  Sache ;  System  der  philosophischen  Welt- 
anschauung.    Bd.  I.  Leipzig,  1906. 

Psychologie  der  Veranderungsauffassung.  Breslau,  1906. 

Ueber   Psychologie   der   individuellen   Differenzen.  (Also   in   Gesellschaft 

fur  psychologische  Forschung :    Schriften,  v.  3.)  Leipzig,   1900. 

Stetson,  Mrs.  Augusta  Emma  Simmons:  Reminiscences,  sermons  and  correspond- 
ence proving  adherence  to  the  principle  of  Christian  science  as  taught  by 
Mary  Baker  Eddy.  New  York,  1914. 

Stevenson,  Robert  Louis:     Across  the  plains.     (Containing  a  chapter  on  dreams.) 

New  York,  1907. 

Stewart,  Balfour:  The  unseen  universe;  or,  Physical  speculations  on  a  future 
state.  London,  1885.* 

Stewart,  Herbert  Leslie :     Questions  of  the  day  in  philosophy  and  psychology. 

London,  1912. 

Stewart,  John  M'Kellar:     A  critical  exposition  of  Bergson's  philosophy. 

London,  1913. 

Stiles,  Joseph  D. :     Twelve  messages  from  the  spirit  John  Quincy  Adams. 

Boston,  1859.* 

Stocker,   Richard   Dimsdale :     Clairvoyance,   clairaudience,   psychometry,   and  clair- 

sensience ;    what  it  is,  and  how  it  is  done.  London,  1907.* 

Stoddart,  William  Henry  Butler :  Mind  and  its  disorders ;  a  text-book  for  stu- 
dents and  practitioners.  London,  1908. 

Stober,  Daniel  August  Ehrenfried :  Elsassisches  Volksbuchlein.  1.  Bd.  2.  stark 
verm.  Aufl.  Miilhausen,  1859. 

Storring,  Gustav :  Mental  pathology  in  its  relation  to  normal  psychology ;  course 
of  lectures  delivered  at  the  University  of  Leipzig.  London,   1907. 

Vorlesungen   iiber   Psychopathologie   in   ihrer   Bedeutung   fur  die   normale 

Psychologie.  Leipzig,  1900. 

Stoker,  Abraham :     Famous  impostors.  London,   1910* 

Stoll,  Otto :     Suggestions  und  Hypnotismus  in  der  Volkerpsychologie. 

Leipzig,  1904. 

Stolz,  Karl  Ruf :  Auto-suggestion  in  private  prayer ;  a  study  in  the  psychology 
of  prayer.  Grand  Forks,  1913. 

Stone,  William  Leete :  Matthias  and  his  impostures ;  or,  The  progress  of  fanat- 
icism. New  York,  1835.* 

Strachey,  Sir  Edward:     Miracles  and  science.  London,   1854.* 

Stratton,  George  Malcolm:     Psychology  of  the   religious  life.  London,   1911. 

Strong,  Charles  Augustus :     Why  the  mind  has  a  body.  New  York,  1903. 

Stubbs,  Henry :     The  miraculous  conformist.  Oxford,   1666.* 

Studies  in  philosophy  and  psychology  by  former  students  of  Charles  Edward  Gar- 
man.     (The  subconscious.)  Boston,  1906. 

Subconscious  phenomena;  by  Hugo  Miinsterberg,  Theodore  Ribot,  Pierre  Janet, 
Joseph  Jastrow,  Bernard  Hart,  and  Morton   Prince.  Boston,   1910. 

Sully  James  and  Robertson,  George  Croom :  Aesthetics,  dreams,  and  association 
of  ideas  New  York,  1888. 

Illusions;    a  psychological  study.  New  York,  1891. 

Surbled,  Georges:     Spirites  et  mediums.     2.  ed.  Paris,  1901.* 

The  Surey  demoniack;    or,  An  account  of  Satan's  strange  and  dreadful  actions, 

in  and  about  the  body  of  Richard  Dugdale  of  Surey.  London,  1697* 

Sutro    Emil:     Duality  of  thought  and  language;    an  outline  of  original  research. 

New  York,  1904. 

Swedenborg,  Emanuel:     Angelic  wisdom  concerning  divine  love  and  wisdom. 

New  York,  1851. 


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Swedenborg,  Emanuel :  The  Apocalypse  explained  according  to  the  spiritual  sense  ■ 
in  which  the  arcana  therein  predicted,  but  heretofore  concealed,  are  revealed! 

New  York,  1897-1909. 

Arcana  caelestia ;    the   heavenly  arcana  contained   in  the  Holy  Scriptures, 

unfolded,  beginning  with  the  book  of  Genesis.     10  v.  New  York,  1892! 

Deliciae  sapientiae  de  amore  conjugiali.  New  York,  1889. 

Delights  of  wisdom  pertaining  to  conjugal  love.  New  York,  1892. 

The  four  leading  doctrines  of  the  New  Church.  New  York,   1873-92.' 

Heaven  and  hell;   also  the  world  of  spirits,  or  the  intermediate  state  from 

things  heard  and  seen.  Philadelphia,  1875. 

2d  ed.  New  York,   1885. 

3d  ed.  New  York,   1899. 

Miscellaneous  theological  works.  New  York,  1892. 

The  true  Christian  religion ;    containing  the  universal  thought  of  the  New 

Church  foretold  in  Daniel.  Philadelphia,  1875. 

Swettenham,  Sir  Frank  Athelstane :     Malay  sketches.  London,  1913.* 

Symanski,   Johann   Daniel :     Selam ;     oder.   Die   Sprache   der   Blumen.     2.  verb.   u. 

verm.  Ann*.  Berlin,  1821. 

Szelinski,  Victor :     Nachtrage   und   Erganzungen   zu   Otto ;    die  Sprichworter  und 

sprichwortlichen  Redensarten  der  Romer.  Jena,   1892. 

Tabrum,  Arthur  H. :  Religious  beliefs  of  scientists,  including  one  hundred 
hitherto  unpublished  letters  on  science  and  religion  from  eminent  men  of 
science.  London,  1910. 

Tanchou,  Stanislas :  Enquete  sur  l'authenticite  des  phenomenes  electriques  d'An- 
gelique   Cottin.  Paris,   1846* 

Tanner,  Amy  Eliza :  Studies  in  spiritism ;  with  an  introduction  by  G.  Stanley 
Hall.  New  York,  1910. 

Tanzi,  Eugenio :  A  text-book  of  mental  diseases.  Tr.  by  W.  F.  Robertson  and 
T.  C.  Mackenzie.  London,  1909. 

Tarkhanoff,  Ivan  Romanivich,  Duke :  Hypnotisme,  suggestion  et  lecture  des  pen- 
sees.    Traduit  par  Ernest  Jaubert.     2e  ed.  Paris,  1893. 

Tavenner,  Eugene :     Studies  in  magic  from  Latin  literature.  New  York,  1916.* 

Taylor,  George  A. :  The  schemers ;  showing  20  allegorical  pictures.  The  story 
reveals  the  perfidy  of  man  in  his  business,  civic,  and  ecclesiastical  relation- 
ships. Sidney,  1914. 

Taylor,  Isaac :     Fanaticism.  New  York,  1834* 

Taylor,  John  Metcalf:     The  witchcraft  delusion  in  colonial  Connecticut,  1647- 1697. 

New  York,  1906. 

Taylor,  Joseph  :  Apparitions ;  or,  The  mystery  of  ghosts,  hobgoblins,  and  haunted 
nouses  developed ;  being  a  collection  of  entertaining  stories  founded  on  fact, 
and  selected  for  the  purpose  of  eradicating  those  fears,  which  the  ignorant, 
the  weak,  and  the  superstitious,  are  but  too  apt  to  encourage.     2d  ed.,  enl. 

London,  1815.* 

Temple,  Sir  Richard  Carnac :  The  thirty-seven  nats ;  a  phase  of  spirit-worship 
prevailing  in   Burma.  London,    1906.* 

Templeton,  Rosamond.     (See  Oliphant,  Mrs.  Rosamond  Templeton.) 

Teuscher,  R. :  Geschichte  des  Teufelsglaubens.  Von  A.  Graf.  .  .  .  Aus  dem  Ita- 
lienischen,  von  Dr.  med.  R.  Teuscher.  2.  Aufl.  der  Naturgeschichte  des  Teu- 
fels.  Jena-  l8o3-* 

Thacher,  James :  An  essay  on  demonology,  ghosts  and  apparitions,  and  popular 
superstitions;   also,  An  account  of  the  witchcraft  delusions  at  Salem,  in  1692. 

Boston,  1831.* 

Thibault,  Emmanuel  Jean  August  Joseph:  fitude  de  psychologie  morbide ;  essai 
psychologique  et  clinique  sur  la  sensation  du  "deja  vu."       Bordeaux,   1899.* 


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Thiele,  Thorwald  Nicolai:     Interpolationsrechnung.  Leipzig,   1909. 

Thiers,  Jean  Baptiste:  Franzosischer  Aberglaube;  Aus  "Traite  des  superstitions." 
(In  Gervasius  of  Tilbury.     Otia  imperialia.)     2  copies.  Hanover,   1856. 

Thomas,  Northcote  Whitridge :  Crystal-gazing;  its  history  and  practice,  with  a 
discussion  of  the  evidence  for  telepathic  scrying;  with  an  introduction  by 
Andrew  Lang.  London,  1905.* 

Thought-transference;    a  critical  and  historical  review  of  the  evidence  for 

telepathy,  with  a  record  of  the  new  experiments.  London,  1905.* 

Thomas,   P.  Felix   (Ed.)  :     De  la  methode  dans  les  sciences.  Paris,   1909. 

Thompson,  John  J. :     A  mirage  of  the  nervous  system.  n.  p.,  1914. 

Thomson,  William  Hanna:     Brain  and  personality;    or,  The  physical  relations  of 

the  brain  to  the  mind.  New  York,  1906. 

Life,  death  and  immortality.  New  York,  191 1. 

Thornbury,  George  Walter:     Haunted  London.  London,  1880.* 

Thorndike,  Edward  Lee  :     Individuality.  Boston,  191 1. 

Thorndike,  Lynn :    The  place  of  magic  in  the  intellectual  history  of  Europe. 

New  York,  1905. 
Thorpe,  Benjamin:     Northern  mythology;    comprising  the  principal  popular  tradi- 
tions and  superstitions  of  Scandinavia,  North  Germany,  and  the  Netherlands. 
3  vols.  London,  1851-52. 

Thouvenal,  Pierre :  Memoire  physique  et  medicinal,  montrant  des  rapports  evidens 
entre  les  phenomenes  de  la  baguette  divinatoire,  du  magnetisme,  et  de  l'elec- 
tricite.  Paris,  1781.* 

Thurneysen,  Eduard  Rudolf  (Ed.  and  Tr.)  :     Sagen  aus  dem  alten  Irland. 

Berlin,  1901. 
Thyane,  A.  de :     Petit  manuel  pratique  d'astrologie.  Paris,  1908.* 

Tietkens,  Ernest  A.:     Mediumistic  and  psychical  experiences.  London,  1911.* 

Timbs,  John:     Mysteries  of  life,  death,  and  futurity,  by  Horace  Welby  (Pseud.). 

New  York,  1863.* 

Predictions  realized  in  modern  times ;    now  first  collected  by  Horace  Welby 

(Pseud.).  London,  1862.* 

Signs  before  death.  London,  1875.* 

Tobler,  Otto:     Die  Epiphanie  der  Seele  in  Deutscher  Volkssage.  Kiel,  191 1. 

Todhunter,   Isaac :     History   of   the   mathematical   theory   of  probability   from   the 

time  of  Pascal  to  that  of  Laplace.  Cambridge,  1865. 

Tolerant,  Jacques  (See  Ducasse,  Victor). 
Topinard,  Paul :     Science  and  faith ;   or,  Man  as  an  animal,  and  man  as  a  member 

of  society;    with  a  discussion  of  animal  societies.  Chicago,  1899. 

Toulouse,  fidouard :     Les  causes  de  la  folie,  prophylaxie  et  assistance.      Paris,  1896. 

Enquete  medico-psychologique  sur  la  superiorite  intellectuelle.     2  vols. 

Paris,  1909. 

Town,  Clara  Harrison:  Two  experimental  studies  of  the  insane;  (1)  The  train 
of  thought,  (2)  Some  physiological  conditions  accompanying  states  of  de- 
pression. Philadelphia,  1909. 

Townshend,  Chauncy  Hare :  Facts  in  mesmerism ;  with  reasons  for  a  dispas- 
sionate inquiry  into  it.  London,  1840.* 

Mesmerism  proved  true,  and  the  Quarterly  Reviewer  reviewed. 

London,  1854.* 

Traite  international  de  psychologie  pathologique  ;  t.  1  :  Generate,  t.  2  :  Clinique,  t.  3 : 
Appliquee.  Paris,  1910. 

Tredgold,  Alfred  Frank:     Mental  deficiency  (Amentia).  London.  1908. 

Tromner,  Ernest :  Das  Problem  des  Schlafes,  biologisch  und  psychophysiologisch 
betrachtet.  Wiesbaden,  1912. 


610  APPENDIX  E 

Troilo,  E. :     II  misticismo  moderno.  Torino,  1899.* 

Trousseau,  Armand :     Lectures  on  clinical  medicine.     (In  New  Sydenham  Society 

Publications,  vols  35,  42,  45,  51,  55).  London,  1868-72. 

Troward,  Thomas:     The  creative  process  in  the  individual,    new  and  enl.  ed.     (The 

Edinburgh  lecture  series).  New  York,  1916.* 

Truesdell,  John  W. :  Bottom  facts  concerning  the  science  of  spiritualism ;  derived 
from  careful  investigations  covering  a  period  of  twenty-five  years. 

New  York,  1892.* 

Tucker,  C.  Comyns :  On  the  doctrine  of  personal  identity ;  considered  with  ref- 
erence to  the  future  life.  New  York,  1906. 

Tuckett,  Ivor  Lloyd:  The  evidence  for  the  supernatural;  a  critical  study  made 
with  "uncommon  sense."  London,  191 1.* 

Tuckey,  C.  L. :  Treatment  by  hypnotism  and  suggestion ;  or,  Psychotherapeutics. 
4th  ed.  London,  1907* 

Tuke,  Daniel  Hack   (Ed.)  :     Dictionary  of  psychological  medicine.     2  vols. 

London,  1892. 

Illustrations   of  the   influence   of   the   mind   upon   the  body   in   health   and 

disease ;    designed  to  elucidate  the  action  of  the  imagination. 

Philadelphia,  1884. 

Sleep-walking  and  hypnotism.  London,  1884.* 

Tunzelmann,  G.  W.  de  :     A  treatise  on  electrical  theory,  and  the  problem  of  the 

universe.      (Appendix  R.     A  simple  experiment  in  thought-transference  and 
an  hypothesis  by  which  it  may  be  accounted  for,  pp.  626-632.) 

London,  1910. 

Turi,  Johann  Olafsson :  Das  Buch  des  Lappen  Johan  Turi ;  Erzahlung  von  dem 
Leben  der  Lappen.     Hrsg.  von  E.  Demant.  Frankfurt,  1913 

Turiello,  Pasquale :  Lo  spiritismo  italiano  e  la  scienza ;  memoria  letta  alia  R. 
Accademia  di  scienze  morali  e  politiche  della  Societa  reale  di  Napoli,  dal 
socio  ordinario  residente  Pasquale  Turiello.  Napoli,  1897.* 

Turner,  Mrs.  M.  M. :     The  Bible  God  ;    Bible  teachings.  New  York,  1899. 

Tuttle,  Hudson  :    Arcana  of  nature.  London,  1909. 

Arcana  of  spiritualism ;    a  manual  of  spiritual  science  and  philosophy. 

Chicago,  1904. 

The  ethics  of  spiritualism ;  a  system  of  moral  philosophy  founded  on  evo- 
lution and  the  continuity  of  man's  existence  beyond  the  grave. 

Chicago,  1878* 
Twain,  Mark:     (See  Clemens). 

Tweedale,  Charles  L. :     Man's  survival  after  death;    or.  The  other  side  of  life  in 

the  light  of  human  experience  and  modern  research.  London,  1909.* 

Tylor,  Edward  Burnett :     Anthropology ;    an  introduction  to  the  study  of  man  and 

civilization.  New  York,  1891. 

Underbill,  Mrs.  Ann  Leah  Fox :     The  missing  link  in  modern  spiritualism. 

New  York,  1885.* 

Underhill,  Evelyn :  Mysticism  ;  a  study  in  the  nature  and  development  of  man's 
spiritual  consciousness.  London,  1912. 

The  mystic  way ;    a  psychological  study  in  Christian  origins. 

London,  1913.* 

Underwood,  Mrs.  Sara  A.:  Automatic  or  spirit  writing;  with  other  psychic  ex- 
periences ;    with  an  introduction  by  B.  F.  Underwood.  Chicago,  1896.* 

Universal  brotherhood ;    its  departments,  methods,  and  scope.  New  York,  1899. 

Upham,  Charles  Wentworth :  Lectures  on  witchcraft ;  comprising  a  history  of  the 
delusion  in  Salem,  in  1692.  Boston,  1831. 

Upham,  Thomas  Cogswell :  Life  and  religious  opinions  and  experience  of  Madame 
de  la  Mothe  Guyon.  New  York,  1849.* 


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Urban,  Friedrich  Maria :  The  application  of  statistical  methods  to  the  problems 
of  psychophysics.  Philadelphia,  1908. 

Urbantschitsch,  Viktor:     Ueber  subjective  optische  Anschauungsbilder. 

Leipzig,  1907. 
Vacandard,  Elphege :     The  inquisition ;    a  critical  and  historical  study  of  the  coer- 
cive power  of  the  church.    Tr.  by  B.  L.  Conway.    2d  ed.        New  York,  1908. 
Vairagyananda :      Hindu-hypnotismus;     Theorie    und    Praxis    der   Fakir-Illusionen 
und   hypnotischen   Experimente.     Autorisierte   Uebersetzung  von   Harry   W. 
Bondegger.    4.  Aufl.  Berlin,  1909.* 

Valcourt- Vermont,  Edgar  de :     Practice  of  palmistry  for  professional  purposes. 

Chicago,  1900. 
Vallemont,  Pierre  de  Lorrain,  Abbe  de :    Der  heimliche  und  unerforschliche  Natur- 
Kundiger ;    oder,  Accurate  Beschreibung  von  der  Wiinschel-Ruthe. 

Niirnberg,  1694. 

La  physique  occulte ;    ou,  Traite  de  la  baguette  divinatoire.  .  .  .  Nouv.  ed. 

augm.  Paris,  1752.* 

Valmont,  de :  Dissertation  sur  les  malefkes  et  les  sorciers  selon  les  principes  de  la 
theologie  et  de  la  physique,  ou  Ton  examine  (!)  en  particulier  l'etat  de  la 
fille.  de  Tourcoing.  ...  A.  Tourcoing,  1752.  Reimpression  sur  l'original. 
[Attributed  by  Barbier  (Diet,  des  ouvrages  anonymes)  to  De  Valmont,  not 
to  the  Abbe  Vallemont  as  stated  in  note  (2  p.  at  end).  Cf.,  also  Yve-Plessis, 
Essai  d'une  bibliographie  franchise  de  la  sorcellerie,  p.  82].  Lille,  1862.* 

Van  der  Naillen,  Albert:  Dans  les  temples  de  l'Himalaya.  Tr.  par  le  docteur 
Daniel.  Paris,  1896. 

Van  Norden,  Charles :     The  psychic  factor ;    an  outline  of  psychology. 

New  York,   1894. 

Vaschide,  N. :     Les  hallucinations  telepathiques.  Paris,  1908. 

Le  sommeil  et  les  reves.  Paris,  1911. 

Vassallo,  Luigi  Arnoldo :     Nel  mondo  degli  invisibili.  Rome,  1902.* 

Vauchez,  Emmanuel:     La  terre;    evolution  de  la  vie  a  sa  surface;  son  passe,  son 

present,  son  avenir.    2e  ed.  Paris,  1893.* 

Vaughan,  Robert  Alfred :     Hours  with  the  mystics ;    a  contribution  to  the  history 

of  religious  opinion.     2  v.  London,  i860. 

Vay,    Adelma    Wurmbrand   Baronin   von :    Aus   meinem   Leben ;     Ein    Spiegelbild 

meines  Lebens,  meines  Thun's  und  Lassen's,  Erinnerungen,  Mediumistisches, 

Humoristisches,  etc.  in  365  Tagen.     I.  Bd.  Berlin,  1900.* 

Bilder  aus  dem  Jenseits.     Medianime  Diktate  von  H.  Chr.  Andersen  und 

Anderen ;    geschrieben  von  Adelma  Vay.  Wein,  1905.* 

Die   Spharen   zwischen  der  Erde  und   Sonne,  von   Augustus.     Hrsg.  von 

Baronin  Adelma  von  Vay.    2.  Aufl.  Berlin,  1903.* 

Venn,  John :     Logic  of  chance.  London,  1888. 

Vergilius  Maro :     The  wonderful  history  of  Virgilius  the  sorcerer  of  Rome. 

London,  1893* 

Verlage,  Jos.:     Die  Wissenschaft  des  Seins.  Bitterfeld,  1899.* 

Verworn,  Max :    Beitriige  zur  Physiologie  des  Central  Nerven-Systems. 

Jena,  1898. 

Die  Mechanik  des  Geisteslebens.  Leipzig,  1907. 

2.  Aufl.  Leipzig,  1910. 

Vicuna  Mackenna,  Benjamin:     Francisco  Moyen ;    or,  The  inquisition  as  it  was  in 

South  America.     Tr.  by  J.  W.  Duffy.  London,  1869. 

Vienna   Universitat    Philosophische    Gesellschaft :  Wissenschaftliche    Beilage    zum 

22.  Jahresbericht  (1909).  Leipzig,  1910. 

Vignoli,  Tito:     Myth  and  science;    an  essay.  New  York,    1882 


612  APPENDIX    E 

Vigouroux,  A. :  La  contagion  mentale,  par  le  Dr.  A.  Vigouroux  et  le  Dr.  P.  Ju- 
quelier.  Paris,  1905. 

Vilbussiere,  Commandeur  de :  Discours  du  boiteux,  sur  la  baguette  divinatoire 
.  .  .  et  ses  consequences  envers  la  philosophic  Amsterdam,  1712.* 

Viollet,  Marcel :     Spiritism  and  insanity.  London,   1910.* 

Le  spiritisme  dans  ses  rapports  avec  la  folie ;    essai  de  psychologie  normale 

et  pathologique.  Paris,   1908. 

Visser,  M.  W.  de:     The  Tengu.     (In  Asiatic   Society  of  Japan   Transactions,  v. 

36,  pt.  2,  1908.)  Yokohama,  1908. 

Vittoz,  Roger :     Treatment  of  neurasthenia  by  teaching  of  brain  control.     Tr.  by 

H.  B.  Brooke.  London,   191 1. 

Vivian,   Philip :     Churches  and  modern  thought ;    an  inquiry  into  the  grounds  of 

unbelief  and  an  appeal  for  candour.  London,  1907. 

Vogt,    Oskar :     Die   directe    psychologische    Experimentalmethode    in    hypnotischen 

Bewusstseinzustanden.  Leipzig,  1897.* 

Void,    John    Mourly :     Ueber    den    Traum ;     experimental-psychologische    Unter- 

suchungen.     1-2  Bd.  Leipzig,  1838-60. 

Volkmann,  F. :     Die  Einwirkung  des  Unsichtbaren  auf  das  Sichtbare. 

Berlin,  1906.* 
Volksbiicher.     Hrsg.  von  G.  O.  Marbach,  O.  L.  B.  Wolff,  O.  Wigand.    v.  1-53. 

Leipzig,  1838-60. 
Vonier,  Anscar :     The  human  soul  and  its  relations  with  other  spirits. 

London,  1913. 
Vulson  de  la  Colombiere,  Marc:     Le  palais  des  curieux;    ou,  l'algebre  et  le   sort 

donnent  la  decision  des  questions  les  plus  douteuses.  Madrid,  1793.* 

Waggett,   Philip   Napier :     Religion  and  science ;    some  suggestions   for  the   study 

of  the  relations  between  them.  London,  1904. 

Wagner,    Johann    Wilhelm    Ernst :     Epics    and    romances    of    the    middle    ages ; 

adapted  from  the  work  of  Dr.  W.  Wagner  by  M.  W.   Macdowall.  and  ed. 

by  W.   S.  W.   Anson  .  .  .  with  numerous  illustrations.     9th  ed. 

London,  CI903. 
Wait,  Frona  Eunice :     The  stories  of  El  Dorado.  San  Francisco,  1904. 

Waite,   Arthur   Edward:     Studies   in   mysticism  and  certain   aspects   of  the   secret 

tradition.  London,  1906* 

Waldstein,  Louis :     The  subconscious  self  and  its  relation  to  health  and  education. 

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Wallace,  Alfred  Russel :     A  defence   of  modern   spiritualism ;    with  a   preface   by 

Epes  Sargent.    9th  ed.  Boston,  1900.* 

Miracles  and  modern  spiritualism.  .  .  .  Rev.  ed.  with  chapters  on  appari- 
tions and  phantasms.  London,  1896c?)* 

My  life.     A  record  of  events  and  opinions.    2  v.  New  York,  1906. 

Die   wissenschaftliche   Ansicht   des   Uebernaturlichen.  .  .  .  Uebers.   von    G. 

C.  Wittig,  und  hrsg.  von  Alexander  Aksakow.  Leipzig,  1874  * 

Wallaschek,   Richard :      Psychologie   und   Pathologie   der  Vorstellung. 

Leipzig,  1903. 
Walsh,  James  Joseph:     Psychotherapy;    including  the  history  of  the  use  of  mental 
influence,  directly  and  indirectly,  in  healing;    and  the  principles  for  the  ap 
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Wandelt,  Oswin :     Sprichworter  und  Sentenzen  des  altfranzdsischen  Dramas. 

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Ward,  Charles  A.:     Oracles  of  Nostradamus.  London,   1891.* 

Ward,  Elizabeth  Stuart :     Gates  between.  London,  1887* 


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Ward,  James:  The  realm  of  ends;  or,  Pluralism  and  theism.  (The  Gifford  lec- 
tures delivered  at  the  U.  of  St.  Andrews,  1907-10.)  Also  26.  ed.  of  even 
date.  Cambridge,  191 1. 

Warner,  Francis :     Physical  expression,  its  modes  and  principles.       London,   1885. 

Warren,  Hardick:     Magick  &  astrology  vindicated.  London,  1651. 

Weatherly,  Lionel  Alexander:  The  supernatural;  with  a  chapter  on  Oriental 
magic,  spiritualism,  and  theosophy,  by  J.  N.  Maskelyne.  Bristol,  1891.* 

Weaver,  Edward  Ebenezer :  Mind  and  health ;  with  an  examination  of  some  sys- 
tems of  divine  healing.  New  York,  1913. 

Webber,  Charles  Wilkinson:  Yieger's  cabinet;  spiritual  vampirism;  the  history 
of  Etherial  Softdown,  and  her  friends  of  the  "New  Light." 

Philadelphia,  1853.* 

Weber,  Ernst:  Der  Einfluss  psychischer  Vorgange  auf  den  Korper,  insbesondere 
auf  die  Blutverteilung.  Berlin,   1910. 

Webster,  David  (Comp.)  :  A  collection  of  rare  and  curious  tracts  on  witchcraft 
and  the  second  sight ;    with  an  original  essay  on  witchcraft. 

Edinburgh,  1820.* 

Webster,  John :  The  displaying  of  supposed  witchcraft ;  wherein  is  affirmed  that 
there  are  many  sorts  of  deceivers  and  impostors,  and  divers  persons  under 
a  passive  delusion  of  melancholy  and  fancy;  but  that  there  is  a  corporeal 
league  made  betwixt  the  devil  and  the  witch,  or  that  he  sucks  on  the  witch's 
body  ...  or  the  like,  is  utterly  denied  and  disproved ;  wherein  also  is  han- 
dled, the  existence  of  angels  and  spirits,  the  truth  of  apparitions  ...  the 
force  of  charms,  and  philters;    with  other  abstruse  matters.     London,  1677.* 

Weingartner,  Georg :  Das  Unterbewusstsein ;  Untersuchung  iiber  die  Verwend- 
barkeit  dieses  Begriffes  in  der  Religionspsychologie.  Mainz,  1911.* 

Weir,  James  Jr. :  Religion  and  lust ;  psychical  correlation  of  religious  emotion 
and  sexual  desire.  Chicago,  1905. 

Weise,  J.  M. :  Das  entlarvete  Idolum  der  Wimschelruthe ;  oder,  Griindliche  Un- 
tersuchung was  bisshero  historice  mit  derselben  passiret,  ob  sie  physico  in 
der  Natur  gegriindet,  und  wie  fern  moraliter  darnach  zu  operiren  sey?  Von 
Theophilum  Albinum   (Pseud.).  Dresden,  1704. 

Welby,  Horace   (Pseud.).     (See  Timbs,  John.) 

Weld,  Le  Roy  Dougherty:  Theory  of  errors  and  least  squares;  a  textbook  for 
college  students  and  research  workers.  New  York,  1916.* 

Wells,  David   Washburn:     Psychology  applied  to  medicine;    introductory   studies. 

Philadelphia,  1907. 

Wells,  Herbert  George:  First  and  last  things;  a  confession  of  faith  and  a  rule 
0f  iife  New  York,  1908. 

Welton,  Thomas  :  Mental  magic ;  a  rationale  of  thought-reading  and  its  attendant 
phenomena,  and  their  application  to  the  discovery  of  new  medicines,  and 
obscure  diseases.  London,   1884.* 

Wendland,  Johannes:     Miracles  and  Christianity.     Tr.  by  Mackintosh. 

London,  191 1. 

Wenley  Robert  Mark:  Modern  thought  and  the  crisis  in  belief.  (The  Baldwin 
lectures,  1909).  New  York,  1909.* 

Wentz  Walter  Yeeling  Evans:  The  fairy-faith  in  Celtic  countries;  its  psychical 
origin  and  nature.  London,  1911. 

Werenfels,  Samuel:  A  dissertation  upon  superstition  in  natural  things.  .  .  .  To 
which  are  added,  occasional  thoughts  on  the  power  of  curing  the  king's  evil. 

London,  1748* 

Wernicke,  Carl:     Grundriss  der  Psychiatrie  in  klinischen  Vorlesungen. 

Leipzig,  1906. 

Westaway,  F.  W. :     Scientific  method,  its  philosophy  and  practice.      London,  1912. 


614  APPENDIX    E 

Westcott,  Brooke  Foss :     Essays  in  the  history  of  religious  thought  in  the  West. 

London,  1891. 

Westervelt,  W.  D. :     Legends  of  Ma-ui-a,  demi-god  of  Polynesia  and  his  mother 

Hina.  Honolulu,  1910. 

Legends  of  old  Honolulu,  collected  and  translated.  Boston,  1915. 

Weyden,  Ernst   (Ed.)  :     Kolns  Legenden,  Sagen,  Geschichten,  nebst  Volksliedern, 

Schwanken,  Anekdoten,  Sprichwortern,  etc.  Koln,  1839. 

Weygandt,     Wilhelm :       Abnorme     Charactere     in     der  dramatischen     Litteratur; 

Shakespeare,  Goethe,  Ibsen,  Gerhart,  Hauptmann.  2  copies.     Hamburg,  1910. 

Atlas  und  Grundriss  der  Psychiatric  Miinchen,  1902. 

Entstehung  der  Traume ;    eine  psychologische  Untersuchung. 

Leipzig,  1893. 

Whately,  Richard,  Abp.  of  Dublin :  A  view  of  the  scripture  revelation  respecting 
good  and  evil  angels.  Philadelphia,  1856. 

Wheatstone,  -Sir  Charles :     The  scientific  papers  of  Sir  C.  W.  London,  1879. 

Whipple,  Edward  :     Biography  of  James  M.  Peebles.  Battle  Creek,   1901* 

White,  Andrew  Dickson :  A  history  of  the  warfare  of  science  with  theology  in 
Christendom.    2  vols.  New  York,  1896. 

White,  Edward:  Modern  spiritualism  judged  in  the  light  of  divine  revelation; 
being  five  discourses  delivered  at  the  Merchants'  lecture,  in  May,  1893. 

London.  1893.* 

White,  William  Alanson :     Mental  mechanisms.  New  York,  1911. 

— ■ The  modern  treatment  of  nervous  and  mental  diseases,  by  American  and 

British  authors.     2  vols.  London,  1913. 

Outlines  of  psychiatry.  New  York,  1909. 

Whiting,  Lilian:     After  her  death;    the  story  of  a  summer.  London,  1904.* 

The  spiritual  significance ;    or  death  as  an  event  in  life.       Boston,   1902.* 

The  world  beautiful.     3  vols.  Boston,  1896-98.* 

Whitmore,  Charles  Edward:     The  supernatural  in  tragedy.  Cambridge,  1915. 

Whitworth,  William  Allen:     Choice  and  chance.  Cambridge,  1886. 

Wiedemann,  Karl  Alfred:     Ancient  Egyptian  doctrine  of  immortality  of  the  soul. 

New  York,  1895. 

The  realms  of  the  Egyptian  dead,  according  to  the  belief  of  the  ancient 

Egyptians.  London,  1902. 

Wiedenmann,  Johannes  Baptist:  Die  Macht  des  Willens  und  der  Gedankenkon- 
zentration ;  Praktische  Methoden  zur  Entwickelung  geistiger  Krafte.  2 
vols.  Leipzig,   1908-09* 

Wilbur,  Sibyl :     The  life  of  Mary  Baker  Eddy.  New  York,  1908. 

William.  Sir  (Pseud.)  :     The  occults  in  council;    or,  The  great  learning,    v.  1. 

Denver,  1901.* 

Williams,  Henry  Llewellyn  :     The  magician's  own  book.  New  York,  1857. 

Williams,  John  S. :  A  synopsis  of  the  spiritual  experience  of  John  S.  Williams, 
medium.  New  York,  1853.* 

Williams,  Mabel  Clare:  Normal  illusions  in  representative  geometrical  forms. 
(In  Iowa  University  Studies  in  psychology,  v.  3.)  Iowa  City,  1902. 

Williamson,  M.  J.:  Modern  diabolism;  commonly  called  modern  spiritualism; 
with  new  theories  of  light,  heat,  electricity,  and  sound.      New  York,  1873* 

Willis,  Alfred  E. :     Illustrated  physiognomy.  Chicago,  1879.* 

Willman,  Reinhold :  The  errors  of  mind  healing  compared  with  the  miracles  of 
Christ  and  His  disciples  in  the  healing  of  the  afflicted,  as  viewed  by  a  physi- 
cian. Saint  Joseph,  1909. 

Willmann,  Carl:     Der  Gedachtniskiinstler  als  Hellseher.     2.  Aufi.       Leipzig,  1897.* 


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Willson,  Henry  Beckles :  Occultism  and  common  sense ;  with  an  introduction  by 
Prof.  W.  F.  Barrett.  London,  1908.* 

Wilson,  Albert :  Education,  personality  and  crime ;  a  practical  treatise  built  upon 
scientific  details,  dealing  with  difficult  social  problems.  London,  1908.* 

Windelband,  Wilhelm :     Die  Hypothese  des  Unbewussten.  Heidelberg,   1914. 

Winslow,  Forbes  Benignus :  On  obscure  diseases  of  the  brain,  and  disorders  of 
the  mind ;    their  symptoms,  pathology,  diagnosis,  treatment,  and  prophylaxis. 

Philadelphia,  i860. 

Winsor,  Justin:  The  literature  of  witchcraft  in  New  England.  (In  American 
antiquarian  society  Proceedings,  n.  s.,  v.  10.)  Worcester,  Mass.,  1896. 

Winter,  Martin:  Ueber  Avicennas  opus  egregium  De  anima  (Liber  sextus  ma- 
turalium).     Grundlegender  Teil.  Miinchen,  1903.* 

Wirth,  J.   U. :     Theorie   des   Somnambulismus  oder  des  thierischen   Magnetismus. 

Leipzig,  1836.* 

Wirth,  Moritz:  Herrn  Professor  Zollners  Experimente  mit  dem  amerikanischen 
Medium  Herrn  Slade  und  seine  Hypothese  intelligenter  vierdimensionaler 
Wesen ;  ein  Vortrag,  gehalten  am  25.  Oct.  und  1.  Nov.  1878  im  Akadem- 
isch-Philosophischen  Verein  zu  Leipzig.  In  3.  Aufl.  ganzlich  umgearb.  und 
stark  verm.  Mit  einer  Antwort  an  ...  W.  Vogel  in  Berlin  und  J.  B.  Meyer 
in  Bonn.  Leipzig,  1882.* 

Die  mediumistische  Frage,  ihre  Lage  und  Losung;  Ein  Aufruf  von  Mor- 
itz Wirth.  Leipzig,  1885.* 

Wirth,   Wilhelm:     Psychophysik;    Darstellung  der  Methoden   der  experimentellen 

Psychologie.  Leipzig,  1912. 

The  Witchcraft  papers.     (In  Massachusetts  Historical  Society  Proceedings,  v.  5.) 

Boston,  1862. 

Witzschel,  August  (Ed.)  :  Kleine  Beitrage  zur  deutschen  Mythologie,  Sitten  und 
Heimatskunde  in  Sagen  und  Gebrauchen  aus  Thiiringen.  Wien,  1866. 

Woeste,  J.  F.  L. :     Volksuberlieferungen  in  der  Grafschaft  Mark.     Iserlohn,  1848. 

Wolfe,  Napoleon  B. :     Startling  facts  in  modern  spiritualism.       Cincinnati,   1874* 

Wood,  Henry:  Ideal  suggestion  through  mental  photography;  a  restorative  sys- 
tem for  home  and  private  use ;  preceded  by  a  study  of  the  laws  of  mental 
healing.  Boston,  1907.* 

Woodbury,  Josephine  Curtis :     Christian  science  voices.  Boston,  1897. 

Worcester,  Elwood  and  McComb,  Samuel:  The  Christian  religion  as  a  healing 
power;    a  defense  and  exposition  of  the  Emmanuel  movement. 

New  York,  1909. 

Religion  and  medicine ;    the  moral  control  of  nervous  disorders. 

New  York,  1908. 

Worrell,  William  Hoyt:     Studien  zum  abessinischen  Zauberwesen. 

Strassburg,  1909. 

Wossidlo,  Richard  (Ed.)  :  Mecklenburgische  Volksuberlieferungen.  v.  1  :  Rat- 
sel  Wismar,   1897. 

Wright,  Thomas:  A  contemporary  narrative  of  the  proceedings  against  Dame 
Alice  Kyteler  prosecuted  for  sorcery  in  1324.  London,  1843. 

Narratives  of  sorcery  and  magic,  from  the  most  authentic  sources.     First 

published  in  London,  1851.  New  York,  1852.* 

Wundt,  Wilhelm:     Beitrage  zur  Theorie  der  Sinneswahrnehmung.      Leipzig,  1862. 

Elemente  der  Volkerpsychologie ;    Grundlinien  einer  psychologischen  Ent- 

wicklungsgeschichte  der  Menschheit.  Leipzig,  1912. 

Essays.  Leipzig,  1906. 

Ethics ;    Investigation  of  the  facts  and  laws  of  moral  life.     3  v. 

London,  1897-1901. 


616  APPENDIX    E 

Wundt,  Wilhelm :     Probleme  der  Volkerpsychologie.  Leipzig,  1911. 

Der  Spiritismus ;     Eine  sogenannte  wissenschaftliche  Frage ;    Offener  Brief 

an   Herrn  Prof.  Dr.   Hermann  Ulrici.  Leipzig,   1879." 

Volkerpsychologie ;     eine    Untersuchung    der    Entwicklungsgesetze.      Zwei- 

ter  Band :    Mythus  und  Religion.     2  pts.  Leipzig,  1900-09. 

Wuttke,  Karl  Friedrich  Adolf :     Der  deutsche  Volksaberglaube  der   Gegenwart. 

Berlin,  1869. 
Yost,  Casper  Salathiel :  Patience  Worth ;  a  psychic  mystery.  New  York,  1916. 
Yule,  G.  Udny :  An  introduction  to  the  theory  of  statistics.  3d  ed.  London,  1916. 
Yung,  £mile  :     Hypnotisme  et  spiritisme.  Geneve,  1890.* 

Zacher,  Ernst  Julius  August :     Die  deutschen   Sprichwortersammlungen. 

Leipzig,   1852. 

Zahm,  John  Augustine:     Evolution  and  dogma.  Chicago,   1896. 

Zerrfi,    George    Gustavus :     Spiritualism    and    animal    magnetism ;     a  treatise    on 

dreams,  second  sight,  somnambulism,  magnetic  sleep.  London,   1871.* 

Ziehen,  Georg  Theodor :     Die  Erkennung  der  psychopathischen  Konstitutionen. 

Berlin,  1912. 

Die  Erkennung  des   Schwachsinns  im   Kindesalter.     2.   Aufl.   Berlin,   1913. 

Die  Prinzipien  und  Methoden  der  Intelligenzpriifung.     3.  Aufl. 

Berlin,   191 1. 

Psychiatrie  fur  Arzte  und  Studierende.  Leipzig,  190S. 

Zingerle,   Ignaz   Vincenz,   Edler  von    Summersberg :     Die   deutschen    Sprichworter 

im  Mittelalter.  Wien,   1864. 

Zollner,  Johann   Karl  Friedrich:     Naturwissenschaft  und  christliche  Offenbarung; 
populare  Beitrage  zur  Theorie  und  Geschichte  der  Vierten   Dimension. 

Leipzig,  1881.* 

Transcendental  physics.  .  .  .  Tr.   from  the   German,  by  C.  C.  Massey. 

London,  1880.* 

fjber  die  Natur  der  Cometen.     3.  Aufl.  Leipzig,  1883.* 

Wissenschaftliche  Abhandlungen.     4  v.  Leipzig,   1878-81.* 


PERIODICALS  IN  PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH   LIBRARY  617 

PROCEEDINGS   OF   SOCIETIES,   AND   PERIODICALS. 

(The  periodicals  or  proceedings  indicated  by  an  asterisk  (*)   were  purchased  upon 

a  special  fund  which  has  been  supplied,  from  year  to  year,  by  Mr.  Thomas  Welton 

Stanford,  of  Melbourne,  Australia.) 

Academie  des  sciences :     Comptes  rendus. 

.       ,  London. 

Academy. 

a,-     •  /      j  i     •  i  St.  Louis. 

Alienist  and  neurologist. 

American  anthropologist.  Lancaster,  Pa. 

American  association  for  the  advancement  of  Science :     Proceedings.     Philadelphia. 
American  Catholic  quarterly  review.  Philadelphia. 

American  folk-lore  society:     Memoirs.  Boston. 

American  journal  of  insanity.  Baltimore,  Md. 

American  journal  of  psychology.  Worcester,  Mass. 

American  journal  of  religious  psychology  and  education.  Worcester,  Mass.* 

American  journal  of  science.  New  Haven,  Conn. 

American  journal  of  sociology.  Chicago. 

American  journal  of  the  medical  sciences.  Philadelphia  and  New  York. 

American  journal  of  theology.  Chicago. 

American  law  review.  Boston. 

American  magazine.  New  York- 

American  medico-psychological  association:     Proceedings  at  the  annual  meeting. 

Utica,  N.  Y* 

American  monthly  review  of  reviews.  New  Y  ork. 

American  naturalist.  Lancaster,  Pa. 

American  review.  New  York- 
American  review  and  literary  journal.     (Preceded  by  the  Monthly  magazine  and 

American  review.)  Mew   York. 

American  society  for  psychical  research  :    Journal.  New  York. 

American  society  for  psychical  research  :     Proceedings.  Boston. 

American  society  for  psychical  research  :     Proceedings.  New  York. 

Andover  review.  Boston. 

Annates  des  sciences  psychiques.  Paris. 

Annales  medico-psychologiques.  Paris. 

L'Annee  philosophique.  Pans. 

L'Annee  psychologique.  Paris. 

Annual  spiritualist  register.  Auburn,  N.  Y* 

Anthropological  review.     (Continued  as  the  Journal  of  anthropology.)         London. 

Archseologia.  London. 

Archiv  fiir  die  gesamte  Psychologic  Leipzig. 

Archiv  fiir  Psychiatrie  und  Nervenkrankheiten.  Berlin. 

Archiv  fiir  systematische  Philosophie.  Berlin. 

Archives  de  psychologie.  Geneva. 

Archives  de  neurologie.  Paris. 
Archives  du  magnetisme  animal,  publiees  par  M.  le  baron  d'Henin  de  Cuvillers. 

Paris* 

Archives  generates  de  medecine.  Paris. 

Archives  of  psychology.  New  York. 

Arena.  Boston. 


618  APPENDIX  E 

Aristotelian  society  for  the  systematic  study  of  philosophy:     Proceedings.     London. 

Association  medical  journal.  (Formed  by  the  union  of  the  Provincial  medical  and 
surgical  journal  and  London  journal  of  medicine;  continued  as  British 
medical  journal).  London. 

Astronomical  and  astrophysical  society  of  America :     Publications. 

Ann  Arbor,  Mich. 

Astronomy  and  astro-physics.     (Continued  as  Astrophysical  journal.) 

Northfield.  Minn. 

Astrophysical  journal.  (Continues  Astronomy  and  astrophysics.)  Chicago. 

Athenaeum.  London. 

Atlantic  Monthly.  Boston. 

Bedrock :    A  quarterly  review  of  scientific  thought.  London. 

Beitrage  zur  Psychologie  der  Aussage.     (Continued  as  Zeitschrift  fur  angewandte 

Psychologic)  Leipzig. 

Berliner  klinische  Wochenschrift.  Berlin. 
Biblical  repertory  and  Princeton  review.     (See  New  Princeton  review).     Princeton. 

Biblical  world.  Chicago. 

Blackwood's  Edinburgh  magazine.  Edinburgh. 

Bookman.  New  York. 

Book  reviews ;    a  monthly  journal  devoted  to  new  and  current  publications. 

New  York. 

Borderland  ;    a  quarterly  review  and  index.  London.* 

Boston  courier.  Boston.* 

Boston  medical  and  surgical  journal.  Boston. 

Brain.  London. 

British  and  foreign  medical  review.  (Merged  into  British  and  foreign  medico- 
chirurgical  review).  London. 

British  association  for  the  advancement  of  science  :     Report.  London. 

British  journal  of  psychology.  Cambridge. 

British  medical  journal ;    the  journal  of  the  British  medical  association.        London. 

California'n.     (See  Overland  monthly).  San  Francisco. 

Case  and  comment.  Rochester,  N.  Y. 

Cassier's  magazine.  New  York. 

Catholic  world.  New  York. 

Century  illustrated  monthly  magazine.    (Formerly  under  title  of  Scribner's  monthly). 

New  York. 

Charities.     (See  Survey.) 

Charities  and  the  commons.     (See  Survey.) 

Chautauquan.  Meadville,  Pa. 

Classical  review.  London. 

Collier's,  the  national  weekly.  New  York. 

Columbia  university  quarterly.  New  York. 

Columbus  medical  journal.  Columbus,  O. 

Congres  international  de  l'hypnotisme  experimental  et  therapeutique :  Comptes 
rendus.  1st,  Paris,  1889;    2d,  Paris,  1902.* 

Congres  international  de  psychologie  experimentale.  Paris* 

Congres  spirite  et  spiritualiste  international.  Paris.* 

Congressional  record.  Washington,  D.  C. 

Contemporary  review.  London. 

Cornhill  magazine.  London. 


PERIODICALS  IN  PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH   LIBRARY 


619 


Cosmopolitan  magazine. 

Critic.     (Merged  into  Putnam's  monthly). 

Current  literature.     (Changed  to  Current  opinion,  in  1913.) 

Current  opinion. 

Dawn  ;    a  journal  of  social  and  religious  progress. 

Dial. 

Dublin  review. 


New  York. 

New  York. 

New  York. 

New  York. 

New  York.* 

Chicago. 

London. 


Eclectic  magazine  of  foreign  literature,  science  and  art. 

New  York  and  Philadelphia. 

New  York. 

(Merged  into  Edinburgh  medical  journal.) 
Edinburgh ;  London. 
Edinburgh ;    London. 


Eclectic  review. 

Edinburgh  medical  and  surgical  journal. 


Edinburgh  review. 


Educational  review. 

Educational  review. 

Engineer. 

Engineer.     (Merged  into  Power,  1908.) 

Everybody's  magazine. 

Expositor. 

Folk-lore  society:    Journal,  Record,  and  Quarterly  review. 

Fortnightly  review. 

Forum. 

Franklin  institute:     Journal. 

Fraser's  magazine.     (Superseded  by  Longman's  magazine.) 

Gazette  des  hopitaux  civils  et  militaires.     (See  Lancette  Frangaise.) 

Gazette  medicale  de  Montreal. 

Gazette  medicale  de  Paris. 

Gentleman's  magazine. 

Gesellschaft  fur  psychologische  Forschung. 

Glasgow  medical  journal.  Glasgow 

Harbinger  of  light. 

Harper's  monthly  magazine. 

Harper's  weekly. 


London. 

New  York. 

London. 

Chicago. 

New  York. 

London. 

London. 

London. 

New  York. 

Philadelphia. 

London. 

Paris. 

Montreal. 

Paris. 

London. 

Leipzig. 

London. 

Melbourne.* 

New  York. 

New  York. 


Hearst's  magazine.  Chicago. 

Hibbert  journal;   a  quarterly  review  of  religion,  theology,  and  philosophy.    London. 
Imago :      Zeitschrift    fiir    Anwendung    der    Psychoanalyse    auf    die    Geisteswissen 

schaften. 
Independent. 

Institut  general  psychologique  :     Bulletin. 
International  congress  of  psychology :    Proceedings. 


Leipzig ;    Vienna. 

New  York. 

Paris. 


Paris; 


Miinchen ; 
Bulletin. 


Rome ;    Geneva. 

Leipzig.* 

Philadelphia. 

Burlington,  Vt. 

Paris. 


Internationale  Gesellschaft  fiir  psychische  Forschung 
International  journal  of  ethics. 
International  quarterly. 
Journal  de  physique. 

Journal  fiir  Psychologie  und  Neurologic     (Formerly  Zeitschrift  fiir  Hypnotismus.) 

Leipzig. 

Journal  of  abnormal  psychology.  Boston. 

Journal  of  American  folk-lore.  Boston. 

Journal  of  anatomy  and  physiology.  London. 


(ijll 


APPENDIX  E 


Journal  of  anthropology.     (Published  for  the  Anthropological  society  of  London.) 


(Preceded  by  Anthropological  review.) 


London. 


Journal    of    medical    research.      (Continues    Boston    society   of    medical    research: 
Journal.)  Boston. 

Journal  of  mental  pathology.  New  York. 

Journal  of  mental  science.  London.* 

Journal  of  nervous  and  mental  diseases.  New  York. 

Journal  of  philosophy,  psychology  and  scientific  methods.  New  York. 

Journal  of  psychological  medicine.  London. 

Journal    of   religious    psychology.      (Continued   as    American    journal   of    religious 
psychology.)  Worcester.  Mass. 

Juridical  review.  Edinburgh. 

Knickerbocker;    or,  New  York  monthly  magazine.  New  York. 

Kongress  fur  experimentelle  Psychologie  :     Bericht.  Leipzig. 

Lancet.  London. 

Lancette  franchise ;    gazette  des  hopitaux  civils  et  militaires.  Paris. 

Literary  digest.  New  York. 

Living  age.  Boston. 

London,  Edinburgh  and  Dublin  philosophical  magazine.  London. 

London  medical  gazette.     (Merged  into  Medical  times  and  gazette.)  London. 

London  quarterly  review.  London. 

London  times  ;    weekly  edition.  London. 

Luce  e  ombra ;    rivista  mensile  illustrata  di  scienze  spiritualiste.  Milano.* 

McClure's  magazine.  New  York. 

Magazine  of  American  history.  Port  Chester,  New  York. 

Medical  era.     (Merged  into  Clinique.)  Chicago. 

Medical  era.     (Merged  into  Medical  review.)  St.  Louis. 

Medical  news.     (Merged  into  New  York  medical  journal.)  Philadelphia. 

Medical  record.  New  York. 

Medical  society  of  the  state  of  Pennsylvania:     Transactions.     (Continued  in  Penn- 
sylvania medical  journal.)  Athens. 

Medical  times.     (Continues  Medical  Times  and  Hospital  gazette.)  London. 

Medical  times.     (Merged  into  Medical  times  and  gazette.)  London. 

Medical  times.  New  York. 

Medical  times  and  gazette.  London. 

Mental  hygiene  conference :     Proceedings.  New  York. 

Mind ;    a  quarterly  review  of  psychology  and  philosophy.  London. 

Missionary  review  of  the  world.  New  York. 

Modern  language  review.  Cambridge. 

Monist.  Chicago. 

Month.  Sidney. 

Monthly  journal  of  medical  science.     (Merged  into  Edinburgh  medical  journal.) 

Edinburgh. 

Monthly   magazine   and   American    review.      (Continued   as   American   review   and 
literary  journal.)  New  York. 

Museum  of  foreign  literature,  science  and  art ;    reviews  of  foreign  literature. 

Philadelphia. 

Nation.  London. 

Nation.  New  York. 


PERIODICALS  IN  PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH   LIBRARY 


621 


Proceedings  of  the  annual  meeting,  7th- 

New  York. 


National  committee  for  mental  hygiene 
btn. 

National  magazine. 

National  review. 

Nature. 

Neurologisches  Centralblatt. 

New  England  magazine. 

New  Princeton  review.     (Preceded  by  Princeton  review;    preceded  by  Presbyter- 
ian quarterly  and  Princeton  review.)  New  York. 

New  republic.  New  York. 

New  world.  Boston. 

New  York  medical  journal.  New  York. 

Nichols  monthly ;    a  magazine  of  social  science  and  progressive  literature 


New  York. 

Shanghai,  China. 

London. 

Leipzig. 

Boston. 


Cincinnati. 

London. 

Boston ;    New  York. 

Edinburgh. 

Paris. 

Chicago. 

Albany,  New  York. 

New  York. 

San  Francisco. 

Portland,  Ore. 

Worcester,  Mass. 

Athens. 


Ninteenth  century  and  after ;    a  monthly  review. 

North  American  review. 

North  British  review. 

Nouvelle  revue  pratique  de  droit  international  prive. 

Open  court. 

Outing. 

Outlook. 

Overland  monthly. 

Pacific  monthly.     (Merged  into  Sunset.) 

Pedagogical  seminary. 

Pennsylvania  medical  journal. 

Philosophical  magazine.  (See  London,  Edinburgh  and  Dublin  philosophical  mag- 
azine.) 

Philosophical  review.  Boston. 

Philosophische  Studien.     (Continued  as  Psychologische  Studien.)  Leipzig. 

Pioneer;    or,  California  monthly  magazine.  San  Francisco. 

Popular  astronomy.  Northfield,  Minn. 

Popular  science  monthly.     (Continued  as  the  Scientific  monthly.)  New  York. 

Practitioner.  Baltimore. 

Practitioner.  London. 

Presbyterian  quarterly  and  Princeton  review.  (Preceded  by  Biblical  Repertory 
and  Princeton  Review.) 

Progres  medical. 

Psychical  review. 

Psychische  Studien. 

Psychological  bulletin. 

Psychological  monographs. 

Psychological  review. 

Putnam's  magazine;  an  illustrated  monthly  of  literature,  art  and  life.  (Merged 
into  Atlantic  monthly.)  New  Rochelle,  New  York. 

Putnam's  monthly.     (See  Putnam's  magazine;    an  illustrated  monthly.) 

Quarterly  journal  of  science,  literature  and  art.  London. 

Quarterly  review.  London. 

Review  of  reviews.     (See  American  monthly  review  of  reviews.)  New  York. 

Revue  de  l'hypnotisme  experimental  et  therapeutique.  Paris.* 

Revue  de  medecine.  Paris. 


Princeton. 
Paris. 
Grafton,  Mass. 
Leipzig.* 
Princeton,  N.  J. 
New  York. 
Lancaster,  Pa. ;    Princeton,  N.  J. 


Lancaster,  Pa. 


622 


APPENDIX    E 


Revue  de  psychotherapie  et  de  psychologie  appliquee. 
Revue  des  cours  scientifiques  de  la  France  et  de  l'etranger. 
tirique.) 

Revue  des  deux  mondes. 

Revue  generale  des  sciences. 

Revue  philosophique  de  la  France  et  de  l'etranger. 

Revue  politique  et  litteraire ;    revue  bleue. 

Revue  scientifique.     (Revue  rose.) 

Rivista  di  scienza.     (See  "Scientia,"  rivista  di  scienza.) 

Royal  anthropological  institute  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland :     Journal. 

from  Anthropological  review,  and  Journal  of  anthropology.) 
Royal  society  of  London :     Proceedings. 
Saturday  review. 

Science.  Cambridge 

Science ;    a  weekly  record  of  scientific  progress. 
Science  progress  in  the  twentieth  century. 
"Scientia";    rivista  di  scienza.     (Continues  Rivista  di  scienza.) 
Scientific  American. 
Scientific  American  supplement. 
Scientific  monthly. 
Scribner's  magazine. 
Scribner's    monthly;     an   illustrated   magazine    for   the   people 

Century  illustrated  monthly  magazine.) 
Sewanee  review,  quarterly. 

Sidereal  messenger.     (See  Astronomy  and  astrophysics.) 
Smithsonian  institution  reports. 
Societe  de  biologie :     Comptes  rendus  et  memoires. 
Society  for  psychical  research :    Combined  index. 

Journal. 

Proceedings. 


Paris* 

(See  Revue  scien- 

Paris. 


Paris. 
Paris. 
Paris. 
Paris. 
Paris. 

(Continued 

London. 

London. 

London. 

New  York. 

New  York. 

London. 

Bologna. 

New  York. 

New  York. 

New  York. 

New  York. 

(Changed   to   the 

New  York. 

Sewanee,  Tenn. 

Northfield,  Minn. 

Washington,  D.  C. 

Paris. 

London. 

London.* 

London.* 

Southern  literary  messenger.  Richmond. 

Spectator.  London. 

Stanford  sequoia.  Stanford  University,  Cal. 

Survey.     (Continues  Charities  and  the  Commons,  preceded  by  Charities.) 

New  York. 
Unpopular  review.  New  York. 

Westminster  review.  London. 

World  today.     (See  Hearst's  magazine.) 

World's  work.  New  York. 

Yale  divinity  quarterly.  New  Haven. 

Zeitschrift  fiir  angewandte  Psychologie  und  psychologische  Sammelforschung. 

Leipzig. 

Zeitschrift  fiir  deutsche  Mythologie  und  Sittenkunde.  Gottingen. 

Zeitschrift   fiir  die  Erforschung  und   Behandlung  des  jugendlichen   Schwachsinns, 

auf  wissenschaftlicher  Grundlage.  Jena. 

Zeitschrift  fiir  Hypnotismus.  (Continued  as  Journal  fiir  Psychologie  und  Neuro- 
logic) Leipzig. 

Zeitschrift  fiir  Pathopsychologic  Leipzig. 

Zeitschrift  fiir  Psychologie  und  Physiologie  der  Sinnesorgane.  Leipzig. 

Zoist:  a  journal  of  cerebral  physiology  &  mesmerism,  and  their  applications  to 
human  welfare,    vol.  1-13.     1843-1856.  London.* 


INDEXES 


INDEX  OF  NAMES 


A  Business   Man,   17 

Abbott,  D.  P.,  34,  S06,  532 

Ach,  N.  425 

Aggazzotti,  Dr.,  527 

Alcott,  Louisa  M.,  360 

Angell,  F.,  xvii,  xxiii,  281,  289,  375 

Angell,  J.  R.,  22,  172. 

Argelander,  F.  W.  A.,  241,  243. 

Arkwright,  F.,  355 

Arkwright,  W.,  355 

Armstrong,  H.  E.,  17 

Azam,  E.,  533 

"B."  Miss,  540 

"B.  C.  A.,"  533,  540 

Bagard,   H.,  496 

Bagley,  W.  C,  407 

Bain,  A.,  405 

Balfour,  A.  J.,  170 

Ballet,  G.,  496-7 

Barrett,    W.   F.,   xx,    xxiii,    17,    18,    302, 

461,  464,   465,   471,   472,   474,   477  U 

490,  491,  498,  502 
Bastian,  H.  C,  404 
Bauch,  M.,  260,  261,  263,  264 
Bayes,  T.,  82,  84,  313 
Beard,  G.  M.,  34,  360  ff. 
Becquerel,  J.,  496 
Bell,  C.   N.,   146 
Beloch,  J.,  255,  257 
Benigni,   E.,  498 
Bennett,  E.  T.,  491 

Bergson,   H.,   26,   29,    170,    174.   214,  225 
Bernoulli,  J.,  82,  87,  313.  334 
Bertrand,  J.  L.  F.,  82 
Bichat,  E.,  496 
Binet,  A.,  424,  429 
Birchall,  J.,  20,  493 
Bishop,  I.,  484,  493 
Bjornson,  B.,  368 

Blackburn,  D„  299  f.,  300,  302,  303,  477  ff. 
Blake,  Mrs.  506,  507,  520,  545 
Blondlot,  R.,  49°,  497 
Bohn,  496 
Bonola,  F.,  497 

Boquet,   F.,  256,   257,  258,  259,   261,  287 
Bordier,  H.,  496 
Bourri,  H.,  533 
Braid,  J.,  34 
Bramwell,  J.  M.,  19,  500 
Branner,  J.  C,  411 
Brazza,  M.  di,  497 
Brett,  H.  W.,  353 


Breydel,  496 

Broca,  A.,  497 

Brown,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  J.  F.,  49 

Brown,  W.,  202 

Briick,  P.,  256,  257 

Buchanan,  J.  R.,  134 

Buffon,  343,  344 

Burot,  P.  F.,  533 

"Burton,"  Miss,  507,  520,  525,  532  f.,  534, 

545 
Bush,  R.  T.,  361 

"C,"  Miss,  540 

Campbell,  W.  W.,  357 

Carpenter,  W.  B.,  34,  172 

Carrington,  H.,  15,  505,  527,  549 

Cashmore,  G.  T.,  48 

Cavina,  G.,  497 

Charlier,  C.  V.  L.,  320,  321,  343,  344 

Charpentier,  A.,  496 

Chauvenet,  W.,  262 

Clark,  G.  T.,  ix 

Clossen,  497 

Cocke,  Mr.,  541 

Collins,  Lord  Justice,  352 

Colquhoun,  W.,  497 

Constable,  F.  C,  18 

Coover,  C.  C,  324,  325,  344 

Coover,  J.  E„  xxii  f.,  174,  202,  252,  253, 

254,  324,  325,  344,  356,  454,  503,  505, 

544 
Corelli,  Marie,  540 
Corson,  496 
Cox,  B.,  351 
Crane,  Miss,  360 

Creery,  A.  M.,  464,  468,  473  f-,  477 
Creery  Sisters,  294,  303,  463  ff.,  492,  493, 

494 
Crichton-Browne,  J.,  490 
Crookes,  W.,  xxi,  171,  498,  527 
Cubberley,  E.  P.,  ix 
Curtis,   H.   S.,  520 

Darbishire,  A.  D.,  326,  344 

Darwin,  C,  360 

Davenport,  C.   B.,  86.  87,   104,   105,   107, 

no,  128,  378 
Davenport  Brothers,  532 
Davey,  S.  J.,  369,  483 
Davis,  A.  J.,  134 
Dean,  Jane,  463,  477  , 

De  Morgan,  343,  344.  349  U  357 
Desbeaux,  E.,  348  f. 


625 


f>2i, 


INDEX   OF    NAMES 


Dessoir,  M.,  20,  304,  533 

De  Whalley,  L.  G.,  330,  344 

Donaldson,  H.  H.,  173 

Donath,  497 

Donkin,  B.,  171 

Donkin,  H.,  469  f. 

Dresslar,  F.  B.,  265  f.,  267,  282,  283 

Dunlap,  K.,  176 

"E.,"  Mrs.,  533 

Ebbinghaus,  H.,  425 

Eckener,  H.,  173 

Edgeworth,  F.   Y.,  48,  80,  313,  335,  464 

Evans,  H.  R.,  532 

Farquhar,  H.,  243 

Fauth,  Ph.,  260 

Fay,  Eva,  532 

Fearing,  F.  S.,  ix 

Feret,  C.  J.,  356 

Flatau,   Elsa,   521,   522 

Flournoy,  Th.,  4,  5,  6,  7,  9,  20,  370 

Flower,  B.  O.,  507,  525,  545 

Foa,  C,  527 

Frith,  Mrs.,  13 

Fullerton,  G.  S.,  xx 

Galton,  F.,  239,  490 

Garland,  H.,  507,  524  f.,  545 

Gehrcke,  E.,  497 

Giblin,  L.,  330 

Golding,  R,  358 

Gonnessiat,  F.,  287,  290 

Greely,  A.  W.,  249,  251 

Greene,  B.  W.  B.,  358  f. 

Griffith,  330,  343,  344 

Grossmann,  E.,  246,  264,  265,  290 

"Grove,"  Mrs.  Rupert,  8 

Gurney,  E.,  18,  29,  48,  54,  171,  303,  461  f., 
463,  464,  465,  472,  473,  478,  484,  485, 
486,  488,  490,  492,  495,  498,  502 

Guthrie,  L.  V.,  507,  520 

Guthrie,  M.,  20,  493 

Gutton,  C,  496 

Hackett,  J.  T.,  353 

Hall,  G.  S.,  17,  21,  34,  303,  470  ff.,  482  £., 

493,  502 
Hall,  J.  H.,  351 
"Hamilton,"  Dr.,  520 
Hamilton,  W.,  172 
Hansen,  F.  C.  C,  32,  33,  34,  39,  43)  SIj 

219,  223 
Hartmann,  J.,  255,  290 
Hazard,  T.  R.,  xx 
Hellenbach,  L.  B.,  364 
Hellmann,  G.,  250,  251,  260,  261,  287,  288 
Helmholtz.,   H.   L.   F.   von,  496 
Henry,  J.,  360 
Herlitzka,   Dr.,  527 


9,   13,  301,  303,  353, 


Herman,  532 
Hertling,  G.  von,  260 
Hick,  Mr.,  362 
Hill,  J.  A.,  17 
Hodge,  Mrs.,  355 
Hodgson,  R.,  7,  g 

369 

Hoffding,  H.,  405 
"Holland,"  Mrs.,  12,  13,  541 
Holmes,  O.  W.,  355  f. 
Holmes,  Mrs.  O.  W.,  355  f. 
Holt,  E.,  540 
Home,   D.  D.,  527 
Hooker,  498 
Hopkinson,  A.,  464 
Hopkinson,  J.,  250,  251 
Hudson,  T.  J.,  498 
Hueck,  A.,  205 
Hughes,  H.  A.,  36 
Hulin,  G.,  349 
Humble-Crofts,  W.  J.,  355 
Hume,  Emma  L.,  546 
Hyslop,  J.  H.,  5,  6,  8,  9,  15,  17,  370,  507, 
520,  525,  539,  541,  547,  549 

"J.,"  Mrs.,  531 

James,  W.,  3,  4,  6,  10,  15,  20,  25,  32,  33, 

34,  47,   124,   137,   142,   149,  302,  368, 

369,  370,  405,  533,  534 
Janet,  P.,  18,  429,  533 
Jastrow,  J.,  16,  20,  21,  22,  28,  34,  173,  354, 

357,  403,  404 
Jensen,  G.  P.  W.,  ix 
Jerusalem,  W.,  175 
Jeyons,  W.  S.,  343,  344 
Johnson,  Alice,   11,   12,   13,  31,  305    306 

t  t.  332  f"  ,343,   344'   351  U   353  U   355  f- 
Johnson,  Anna,  371 

Johnson,  H.  R.,  411  f. 

Johnson,  S.,  360 

Jordan,  D.  S.,  v,  xix,  164 

Kampfe,  B.,  81 
Kaufmann,  W.,  497 
Kellar,  532 
Keller,  Lena  M.,  ix 
Kent,  Grace  H.,  285  f. 
Keraval,  498 
"Key,"  Mrs.,  503  ff. 
Kingsley,  Canon,  359 
Kroeber,  A.  L.,  374 
Ktilpe,  O.,  172,  241 

Ladd,  G  T.,  406 
Lambert,  M.,  496 
Lang,  A.,  10 
Lankester,  R.,  17 
Laplace,  312,  313 
Laurent,  H.,  96 


INDEX   OF   NAMES 


627 


Law,  A.,  358 

Laycock,  D.  T.,   172 

"Le  Baron,"  370 

Lehmann.  A.,  32,  33,  34,  35,  39,  43,   5', 

171,  219,  223 
Lepinay,  J.  M.  de,  496 
Lewitzky,  G.,  256,  257,  287 
Lincoln,  A..  364 
Lindsay,  Miss  B.,  48 
Lipps,  Th.,   172 
Littrow,  K.  von,  243 
Lodge,   O.,   xxi,   xxii,  xxiii,   5,  8,    13,    14, 

17,   18,  23,  26,  30,  78,   124,  462,  474, 

506,  539,  S45,  546,  549 
Loewenfeld,  L.,  20 
Lombroso,  C,  505,  506,  527 
Lovejoy,  A.  O.,  414 
Lummer,  O.,  497 

Mabire,  J.  E.,  54 

M'Dougall,  W.,  20,  463,  546 

McDowell,  J.  E.,  ix,  247 

McKendrick,   J.   G.,  497 

Maeterlinck,  M.,  10 

Mangro,  Helen  M.,   177 

Marbe,  K.,  34,  152,  273,  285,  296 

Martin,  G.  M„  428 

Martin,   Lillien   J.,   viii,   281,   409  ft. 

Mascart,  496 

Maskelyne,  J.  N„  532 

Meissner,  O.,  258,  259,  287.  288 

Mendeleeff,  413 

Menut,  350 

Meyer,  E,  496 

Meyer,  J.,  496 

Miles,  Clarissa,  II,  302 

Miller,  Beulab,  172,  494 

Milne,  Dr.,  534 

Milton,  J.,  149,  316,  346 

Minot,  C.    S„   171,  268,  269,  296,  298  ft., 

300,  301,  302,  303,  311.  483.  502 
Mitchell,  S.  W.,  xx,  533 
Moll,  A.,  19  f.,  493 
Moore,  T.  V.,   174 
Morse,  S.  F.  B.,  360 
Morselli,  E.,  34 
Mosso,  506,  527 
Miiller,  G.  E„  281,  425 
Miinger,  Jr.,  A.  L.,  415 
Miinsterberg,  H.,  172,  494 
Murray,  G.,  226 
Myers,  A.  T.,  24 
Myers,  F.  W.  H„  2,  S,  24,  29,  48,  54,  304, 

325,  364,  424,  461,  464,  472,  478,  4^4. 

485,  486,  488,  489,  490.  492,  498,  540. 
Myers,  Mrs.  F.  W.  H.,  464 

Nagel,  Else,  ix 
Nagel,  W.  A.,  497 
Newcomb,  S.,  20,  144 


Newton,  I.,  225 
Nuttall,  G.  F.   H.,   173 

Obermayer,  A.  v.,  252,  253 

Ogden,  350  f. 

Osten  von,  22,  171,  492 

Pacini,  D.,  497 

Palladino,  Eusapia,  505,  506,  527,  545 

Palmer,  Mrs.  362. 

Paracelsus,  452 

Parish,   E.,  33 

Paul,  St.,  xix 

Pearson,    K.,    96,    250,    314,    315.   327  ff., 

340,  341,  343,  344,  345 
Peirce,  B.,  242,  255 
Peirce,  C.  S.,  173,  242,  243,  244 
Peirce,  J.  M.,  124 
Pepper,  W.,  xx 
Perrine,  C.  D.,  357 
Pfungst,  O.,  21  f.,  171,  492,  494 
Phaedrus,  vi 

Pickering,  E.  C,  124,  240,  244,  294  ft 
Pickering,   W.   H.,  297 
Piddington,  J.  G,  12 
Pigou,  A.  C.,  11,  12. 
Pillsburv,  W.  B.,  202,  406  f. 
Piper,  Mrs.  3,  4,  6,  7,  8,  9,  10,  13,  18,  20, 

142.  541 
Pitman,  I.,  382 
Plassmann,  J.,  260 
Podmore,  F.,  4,  8,  9,  10,  11,  13,   14,  17. 

18,  25,  48,  54,  121,  305,  306,  370,  452, 

474,   483  f.,   485,   486,   491,   493,   498, 

505,  527,  532.  541 
Poisson,  S.  D.,  82,  313 
Preyer,  W.,  34,  50,  171,  335  f. 
Prince.  M.,  424,  429,  533,  540  f„  546 
Proctor,  R.  A„  349  ff-,  357 
Pyle,  W.  H..  177 

Quetelet,  A.,  148,  321,  322,  343,  344,  350 

Ramsden,  Hermione,  II,  302 

Rawson,  H.  G.,  78 

Raymond,  H.,  360 

Reinhold,  F.,  285 

Revnolds,  J.  T.,  ix 

Ribot,  Th.,  423,  533 

Richard  II,  540 

Richet,  Ch„  18,  23  f.,  29,  34,  47,  48  f.,  49, 

50,    65,     124,     149,    303  f-.    306,    312, 

335  {-,  5o6 
Rigby,  Lord  Justice,  352 
Rontgen,  7 

Romanes,  G.  J.,  484,  490 
Rosanoff,  A.  J.,  285  £. 
Rothe,  E.,  496 
Royce,  J.,  364 
Rudge,  W.  A.  D„  497 


628 


INDEX   OF   NAMES 


Rux,  C,  425 

"S.,"  Mrs.,  507,  S24  i-,  545 

Sagnac,  G.,  496 

Salisbury,  Earl  and  Countess  of,  540 

Salvioni,  E.,  497 

Sanford,  E.  C,  260,  266  ff.,  269,  282  f. 

Sanger,  C.  P.,  85 

Sauvaire,  C,  175 

Schenck,  C.  C,  497 

Schiller,  F.  C.  S.,  10 

Schmoll,  A.,  54,  299 

Schonfeld,  Prof.,  244,  245  f. 

Schumann,  Fr.,  202 

Scripture.  E.  W.,  27  f.,  80,  82,  84,  175 

Seybert,  H.,  xix 

Shah  of  Persia,  359 

Shakespeare,  W.,  149,  316 

Shaw,  A.  Margaret,  186  ff.,  217,  219,  224 

Shilton,  A.  J.,  48 

Shuttleworth,  Miss,  354 

Sidgwick,  H.,  xx,  xxi,  18,  24,  32,  33,  142, 

463,  464,  468  f.,  473,  484,  49s,  502 
Sidgwick,  Mrs.  H.,  18,  20,  31,  39,  43,  142, 

304,  369,  464,  473,  490 
Sidis,  B.,  177  ff.,  188,  196,  217,  224. 
Slade,  H.,  538 
"Smead,"  Mrs.,  370,  541 
Smith,  Lord  Justice  A.  L.,  352 
Smith,  G.  A.,  299  f.,  300,  302,  303,  477  ff ., 

493 
Smith,  Gwendoline,  321,  322,  341 
"Smith,"  Helene,  4,  7,  370 
"Smyth,"  Dr.,  520 

Stanford,  T.  W.,  iii,  xix  ff.,  551,  617 
Stanley,  H.  M.,  146 
Starch,  D.,  248 
Steinmetz,  350  f. 
Stephens,  A.  H.,  355 
Stewart,  B.,  24  f.,  464  f.,  471,  495 
Stout,  G.  F.,  173,  226 
Stradling,  G.  F.,  498 
Stratton,  G.  M.,  173 
Strieker,  S.,  520 

Stroh,  Marie,  186  ff.,  217,  219,  224 
Sudden,  Anita,  324,  342,  344 
Swinton,  A.  A.  C,  497 


Tanner,  Amy  E.,  21,  34 

Taylor,  G  Le  M.,  300,  301 

"The  Hermit  of  Prague,"  17,  28,  502 

Thomas,  Fr.,  176 

Thomas,  N.  W.,  xviii,  5,   16,   17,  19,  26, 

121,   124,  226,  312,  474,  491,  500. 
Thompson,  Mrs.,  5,  539 
Thumb,  A.,  285 


Titchener,  E.  B.,  22,  145  f.,  152,  177,  229, 

284,  406 
Todhunter,  I.,  82,  313 
Townley,  S.  D.,  260,  261 
Truesdell,  J.  W.,  532 
Tucker,  M.  A.,  ix 
Tuckett,  I.  LI.,   15,   17,   18,  19,  22,  26  f., 

171,  173.  302,  358,  490,  502 
Tunzelmann,  G.  W.,  498 
Turpain,  A.,  497  f. 
Twain,  Mark,  171,  354,  359  f.,  363,  498 

Upp,  D.  C,  ix 
Urban,  F.  M.,  262,  263 

Vaschide,  N.,  34,  421 

Venn,  J.,  149,  316,  346 

Verrall,  Mrs.  A.  W.,  12,  13,  85,  174,  452, 

541 
Virtz,  496 

Volkmann,  A.  W.,  205 
Voltaire,  360 

Wagner,  F..  411 

Wallace,  A.  R.,  360 

Walter,  A.,  249,  251,  289,  290 

Washburn,  Margaret  F,  177,  186  ff.,  217, 

219,  224 
Weber,  E.   H.,  225 
Weldon,   W.   F.    R.,   321,   322,   326,   341, 

342,  344,  345 
Wellington,  Duke  of,  355 
Westergaard,  H.,  319,  343,  344 
Wheatstone,  C.,  360 
White,  Miss,  355 
Wilkie,  F  B„  358 
Willson.  B„  358 
Wingfield,  The  Misses,  48,  303 
Wise-Knut,  368 
Wood,  R.  W.,  408 
Woodworth,  R.  S.,  406 
Wright,  W.  H.,  354,  360 
Wundt,  W.,  81,  290.  405  f. 
Wyczoikowska,  Anna,  520 

"X,"  Miss,  540 

Yerkes,  R.  M.,  262,  263 
Yost,  C.  S„  316 

Yule,   G.  U.,  86,  95,    105,   128,  314,  317, 
319,  321,  322,  334,  342,  343,  345,  378 

Zahn,  H.,  497 
Zimmern,  A.,  497 
Zinger,  N.,  256,  287 
Z611ner,  J.  K.  F,  538 


INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS 


Ages,  of  the  Latin  dead  show  influence 
of  mental  habit,  255,  257,  265 ;  of 
the  population  of  the  U.  S.  show- 
influence  of  mental  habit,  231  ff. 

American  Society  for  Psychical  Re- 
search (old),  officers  of,  quoted  on 
telepathy,  20,  21,  144,  296,  297;  left 
investigation  of  telepathy  unfinished, 
24 ;  found  negative  results  in  ex- 
periments on  thought-transference, 
24,  34,  49,  124,  341,  343  f. ;  work  of, 
referred  to,  50,  53,  54,  268  f.,  294  ff., 
298  f.,  369 

(the  present),  acknowledgment 

of  obligations  to,  ix ;  seeking  proof 
of  survival,  3,  535 ;  "controls"  de- 
lighted with  prospect  of  report  to, 
541  ;  officer  of,  quoted,  547,  548 

Amnesia  for  somnambulistic  and  trance 
phenomena,   533  f.,   note   44 

Anaesthesia  for  automatic  phenomena, 
532,  note  43 

"Annette,"  a  'personality'  that  expresses 
itself  through  Mrs.  Holland's  script, 
reproduced    forgotten    memory,    541 

Argelander's  Durchmusterung,  shows 
influence  of  mental  habit,  241  ff. 

Augmentation  of  vision  in  hypnotized 
boy,  (Bergson),  174;  girl,  (Sau- 
vaire),  175 

Automatisms,  sensory  and  motor,  re- 
sponsible for  "inner  experience"  of 
telepathy,  47,  117,  142!,  152,  167 

Barrett's  dictum  that  telepathy  is  not  a 
subject  of  controversy,  502;  contro- 
verted,  (Tuckett,  Minot,  Hall),  502 

Bayes'  theorem,  applied  to  results  of  ex- 
periments on  thought-transference, 
84  f. 

Beard,  elaborate  coincidence  reported 
by,  360  ff . 

"Beauchamp,  Sally,"  an  alternating  per- 
sonality, suppressed  by  Prince,  re- 
garded by  M'Dougall  as  a  possessing 
spirit,   546 

Bernoulli's  theorem,  applied  to  results 
of  experiments  on  thought-trans- 
ference, 80  ff. ;  importance  of,  stated 
by  Todhunter,  313  f. 

Beulah  Miller,  the  little  telepathist  of 
Rhode      Island,      read      unintended 


signs,  (Miinsterberg),  172;  investi- 
gation of,  illustrates  difficulty  of  ex- 
perimentation on  thought-transfer- 
ence, 494 

Binomial  N(q+p)n,  formula  for  expan- 
sion of,   (Yule),  95 

Black  cat,  imaged  in  a  thought-trans- 
ference situation,  159  ff.,  with  nega- 
tive results,    163  f.,   167 

"Booker,"  president  of  California  Psych- 
ical Research  Society,  529,  531,  537, 
538 

"Brain-waves,"  as  an  explanation  of 
thought-transference,  171  ;  not  war- 
ranted as  an  hypothesis,  (Donkin), 
470;  associated  with  K-rays,  498 

California  Psychical  Research  Society, 
courtesies  of,  acknowledged,  ix,  xxiii, 
126 ;  program  of,  503  ff. ;  investiga- 
tion by,  503  ff. ;  methods  of,  com- 
mended, (Hyslop),  547,  549,  (Car- 
rington),  549;  see  "Trumpet"  me- 
dium 

Card-experiments  commended  for 
thought-transference  experiments, 
(Gurney,  Richet),  49  f. ;  seem  well 
adapted  to  test  for  telepathy  or 
lucidity,  137 

Card-guessing,  48  ff. ;  successful  results 
in,  48  f. ;  negative  results  in,  49 ; 
commended  by  Gurney  and  Richet, 
49  f. :  by  normal  reagents,  48  ff. ;  by 
'sensitive'  reagents,  125  ff. ;  see 
Thought-transference 

Central  measures,  of  results  of  Lotto- 
block-guessing,  39 ;  of  card-guessing 
by  normal  reagents,  105  ff. ;  by  'sen- 
sitive' reagents,  128 ;  of  results  of  ex- 
periments on  the  feeling  of  being 
stared  at,  147;  of  results  of  experi- 
ments on  subliminal  impression, 
193  ff. ;  of  series  of  chance  events, 
333  ff- ;  of  experiments  in  sound  as- 
similation, 378  ff. 

Chance,  may  produce  any  unlikely  event, 
even  Milton's  "Paradise  Lost"  or  the 
plavs  of  Shakespeare,  (Venn),  149, 
316,  348  ff. 

Chance  events,  distributions  of,  314  ff. ; 
central  measures  of,  333  ff. ;  see 
Probability 

Chances,  the  law  of,  see  Probability 


629 


630 


INDEX   OF  SUBJECTS 


Clairvoyance,  power  of,  possessed  by 
Mile.  "Smith,"  may  be  telepathy, 
(Flournoy),  4,  7;  in  trance  utter- 
ances. (Lodge,  Myers),  5;  not  re- 
ducible to  telepathy,  (Lodge),  13  f. ; 
not  found  in  laboratory  tests,  (Hall), 
21;  found  (?)  in  hypnotic  subjects 
by  writer,  Z7\  card-experiment  a  test 
for,  50,  125,  137;  'sensitives'  and 
mediums  tested  for,  125  f. ;  with  neg- 
ative results,  120  1,  142  f. 
"Clark,  Harrison,"  Mrs.  "Smead's"  'con- 
trol,' who  failed  signally  to  identify 
himself,  541 
Clever  Hans,  the  educated  horse,  read 
involuntary  signals,  (Pfungst),  171; 
proximate  correctness  characteristic 
of,  492;  experiments  with,  illustrate 
the  difficulty  of  investigation  of 
thought-transference,  494 
Cloudiness,  estimates  of,  show  influence 

of  mental  habit,  252 
Code    in    thought-transference,     (Hall) 
471  f.,  482;  (S.  P.  R.),  473;  (Black- 
burn), 488  f. 
Coefficient    of   correlation,    formula    for, 

(Brown),  202 
Coincidences,  remarkable,  353  ff. ;  multi- 
ply with  interest  in  them,  354,  357; 
sec  Infinitesimal  probability 
Collusion,  as  an  explanation  of  thought- 
transference,      171,     464  fif.,     480  ff 
4011-   499  f.,    (Hall),   470  ff.,   482  f., 
(Minot),  299  f,  302,  483,   (Donkin), 
469L        (Crichton-Browne),       490; 
found    in    thought-transference    ex- 
periments, 472  f. ;    confessed  by  par- 
ties  to  thought-transference  experi- 
ments, 473,  484  ft". 

Comet,   coincidence   concerning  a,  356  f. 

Consonantal  sounds  in  English  speech, 
frequency  of  the  respective  simple! 
381;  analysis  of,  382;  errors  made 
upon,  in  use  of  dictaphone  and  tele- 
phone, 381  f. ;  sec  Sound  assimilation 

Corneal  reflection,  the  role  of,  in  experi- 
ments on  thought-transference,  121  ; 
of  Arabian  numerals  read  by  hypno- 
tized boy,  (Bergson),  174;  experi- 
ments in,  from  playing-cards,  121  ff 
214  ff. 

Creery  sisters,  experiments  with  the, 
463  ff. 

Criminal  sentences,  show  influence  of 
mental  habits,  in  the  U.  S.,  234  ff. ; 
in  England,  238  ff. 

"Critical  state,"  a,  probably  necessary  for 
thought-transference,  (James),  34, 
124,  137,   149,   (Lehmann),  34  f. 


"Crookes,   Sir   William,"  reported  by  a 
'control'  to  be  present  in  seance,  528 
5.39 
Cross-correspondences,      simple,       (Miss 
Johnson),    11;    complementary,    de- 
scribed, (Miss  Johnson),  11,  and  re- 
duced    to     telepathy,     (Pigou),     12, 
(Podmore),  13 
Cross-references,    547;    see   Cross-corre- 
spondences 
Crystal-gazing,    served    to    convert    sub- 
liminal   impressions    into    hallucina- 
tory perceptions,  213 
"Cycles,"  Miss  Johnson's,  in  coin-tossing, 
in  general  agreement  with  theory  of 
chances,  332,  but  present  several  ex- 
ceptions, 332  i. 
A,  Measure  of  "closeness  of  fit,"  formu- 
las for,  (Pearson),  no,  315 
"Dan,"  a  'control'  of  Miss  "Burton,"  de- 
ception of,  534 
Data    subjected    to    statistical    treatment 
must  be   free   from   errors   of   testi- 
mony, including  mal-observation,  and 
tricks  of  memory,  365 
De    Camp-Stockton    case,    mentioned    in 

Hyslop's  letter  to  Mrs.  "Key,"  547 
Diagram-habit,      the,      298  s.;      protest 
against     its      wide     application      in 
thought-transference        experiments, 
(James),  302;  see  Mental  habit 
Dice,  a  throw  of  'seven'  nine  times  run- 
ning,  350  f. ;   bias   in,  shown   in   dis- 
tribution-curves,  326,   327  f. ;    shown 
in  central  measures,  344  f. 
Dictaphone,     used     for     recording    "un- 
known tongues,"  371 ;  used  in  experi- 
ments in  sound  assimilation,  373 
Differences  in  stimuli  too  small  to  be  dis- 
criminated   may    still    influence    re- 
action,  (Donaldson),  173 
Distribution-curves,  of  R  cases  in  card- 
guessing,  99  ff. ;  of  R  cases  expected 
by  reagents.   1 1 1  ;  of  the  number  of 
reagents   who  graded   guesses   high, 
113;  of  judgments  showing  influence 
of   mental    habit,   230  ff. ;    of   chance 
events,  314  ff-;  of  the  substitution  of 
sounds  in  English  speech,  382 
Distributions,    of   chance   events,    follow 
the  law  of  chances.  317  ff.;  sec  Em- 
pirical  and   theoretical   distributions 
Dream  coincidences,  358  f.,  359 
Dresslar's    investigation    of    superstition 
among  students  preparing  to  teach, 
282;  study  in  guessing  reveals  num- 
ber-habits, 265 
Eight,   inverted,   showing  space   illusion, 

289 
Elberfeld     horses,     work    by     telepathy, 
(Maeterlinck),  10 


INDEX   OF  SUBJECTS 


631 


Empirical  and  theoretical  central 
measures,  correspondences  between, 
333  ff- ;  of  results  from  Lotto-block 
guessing,  337,  drawing  of  blank 
blocks,  337  {.,  drawing  of  digits,  338, 
throwing  of  respective  die-spots, 
338  f.,  card-guessing,  drawing  of  re- 
spective cards,  throwing  of  roulette 
zero,  (/>=.025),  339  ff. ;  guessing  of 
number  on  cards,  guessing  of  digits, 
drawing  cards  of  respective  numbers, 
(/>=.i),  341;  throwing  the  6-spot 
with  dice,  (/>=.i67),  341  f . ;  guessing 
suit  of  cards,  drawing  respective 
suits  of  cards,  tossing  heads  with 
four  pennies,  (/>=.25),  342;  throw- 
ing the  5  and  6-spots  with  dice, 
(/'=.33)>  342  f. ;  drawing  of  blank 
blocks,  throwing  odd  dice,  guessing 
color  of  cards,  drawing  tickets, 
throwing  heads  with  coins,  drawing- 
white  balls,  throwing  4,  5,  and  6-spots 
with  dice,  throwing  red  at  roulette, 
(/'=-S).343ff. 
Empirical  and  theoretical  distributions, 
agreement  of,  314  ff.,  328,  in  re- 
sults of  card-guessing,  317  f. ;  die- 
throwing,  319  f.,  321  ff.,  326  ff.,  327; 
drawing  of  white  balls,  319  f.,  321  ff. ; 
guessing  or  drawing  of  red  cards, 
320;  tossing  of  coins,  323  ff.,  328; 
drawing  of  red  counters,  327 ;  draw- 
ing hearts  (cards),  327;  throws  of 
the  roulette  ball  with  respect  to  odd 
and  even,  330,  but  not  red  and  black. 
328  f.,  330  f.,  or  the  respective  num- 
bers, 331 
Equation  decimate,  /',  256 ;  see  "Personal 

scale" 
"Esdale,"  name  seen  on  coffin,  in  alleged 

premonitory  dream,  358 
Estimates,  of  time  and  space,  show  in- 
fluence of  mental  habit,  262  ff. ;  of 
time  from  kymograph  records,  show 
influence  of  mental  habit,  252  ff. 
Evidence,  standard  of,  must  be  drawn 
from  recognized  departments  of 
knowledge,  (Gurney),  462;  "suffi- 
cient," is  such  as  will  convince  the 
scientific  world,  (Sidgwick),463  ;  for 
telepathy,  based  upon  coincidences  in 
dreams  and  hallucinations  (spontane- 
ous cases),  vitiated  by  both  mental 
habit  and  fallibility  of  testimony,  306 
Experimental  thought-transference,  has 
statistical  advantage  over  "spontane- 
ous cases,"  (Podmore),  14,  (Car- 
rington),  15,  (Constable),  18, 
(Richet,  Johnson),  306 
Experts,  agreement  of,  is  final  test  of 
truth,  (Sidgwick),  468 


"Eye,  Power  of  the,"  tested,  (Stanley), 
146 

Fagot  theory,  the,  stated,  495 ;  fallacious, 
494  ff.,  500  f. 

"Feeling  of  being  stared  at,"  prev- 
alence of  belief  in,  by  university 
students,  xxii,  144  f. ;  tested  by  ex- 
periment, (1)  when  the  reagent 
knew  that  he  either  was  or  was  not 
to  be  stared  at,  146  ff.,  (2)  when  he 
did  not  know  he  was  to  be  stared  at, 
153,  (3)  when  he  was  given  grounds 
for  suspecting  that  the  experimenter 
might  exert  some  sort  of  influence, 
156  f.,  (4)  when  there  were  twelve 
starers,  158  ff.;  variability  in  cer- 
tainty of  judgments  on,  149 ;  causes 
for  feeling  of  certainty,  150  ff.,  163; 
negative  results,  148,  154  f.,  167; 
evoked  only  when  reagent  accepts 
suggestions    of    a    staring-situation, 

163 

"Finne,"  the  'control'  of  Mr.  Cocke,  said 

to  be  the  etymological  parent  of  Mrs. 

Piper's  "Phinuit,"  541 
Flamsteed's  unlucky  coincidence,  357  f. 
Foreign   tongue,   speech   in   a.  see  Glos- 

solalia 
Formulae  for : 

A,  "closeness   of  fit"  and   its  proba- 
bility, (Pearson),  no,  315 

Expansion   of  binomial,    (Yule),   95 

Factorials   of  large  numbers,    ( Lau- 
rent), 96 

k,  occurrences  in  n  trials,  (Laurent), 

P6. 

L,  limit    of   chance    deviation,    82  f., 

85  f. 
n,  number   of  experiments  in   a   set 

sufficient   to   prove   extra-chance 

cause  when  L  is  constant,  83  f. 
P,  the   probabilitv   of   an    event,   80, 

95f. 
PEM,  probable    error   of    the    mean, 

JOS,  333,  378 
r,  coefficient  of  correlation,  (Brown). 

202 
0,  standard  deviation,  empirical,  105, 

333 ;  theoretical,  334,  note  164 
for  determining  amount  of  in- 
fluence of  subliminal  impression,  181, 
183,  196 ;  for  determining  amount  of 
influence  of  mental  habit  in  guessing, 
292;  for  testing  distributions  of 
chance  events  for  extra-chance 
cause,  verified  in  experience,  333 ; 
application  of,  to  results  of  experi- 
ments    on     subliminal     impression, 


632 


INDEX   OF  SUBJECTS 


1S0  f.,  196;  see  Probability,  the 
theory  of;  also  Statistical  formula;, 
Bayes',  Bernoulli's  and  Poisson's 
theorems 

French  lottery,  remarkable  plavs  of  the, 
.349/- 

"Fringe"  of  consciousness,  (Angell), 
172;    (Murray),  226 

"Fringe  of  perceptions,"  a,  unconscious, 
but  entering  into  normal  perception, 
(Bergson),    170,    demonstrated,    225 

Gambling,  rare  plays  in,  illustrative  of 
the  law  of  chances,  348  ff. 

Games  of  chance,  remarkable  events  in, 
325  ff.,  348  ff. ;  see  Empirical  and 
theoretical  central  measures,  In- 
finitesimal probability 

Ghosts,  capacity  to  see,  depends  upon 
power  of  projecting  visual  imagery, 
(Martin),  413  ff.;   see  Local   ghosts 

Glossolalia  (speaking  with  tongues),  in 
Martian  language  of  Helene 
"Smith,"  (Flournoy),  and  Mrs. 
"Smead,"  (Hyslop),  and  the  Egypt- 
ian language  of  Mr.  "Le  Baron," 
(James),  370,  note  4;  cases  of,  at- 
tested by  affidavit,  371 ;  method  of 
establishing  "Foreign  tongues,"  407  f. 

Grades  of  students,  show  influence  of 
common  mental  habits,  247  ff.;  can- 
not be  made  accurate  on  percentile 
scale.  248;  reliability  of,  tested  by 
Starch.  248,  note  21 

Great  men,  unable  to  spread  their  au- 
thority in  other  fields  over  psychical 
research,  (Angell),  xxi.  (Bram- 
well),  19,  (Moll),  20:  readilv  im- 
posed upon  by  mediums,  (Moll),  20 

Greenwich  observatory,  observations  of, 
show  influence  of  mental  habit,  250 

Guesses  are  delivered  with  varying  de- 
grees of  certainty  that  the  guess  is 
right,  by  normal  reagents,  on  Lotto- 
blocks,  41,  cards,  73  ff.,  112  f,  123, 
on  the  "feeling  of  being  stared  at," 
149,  163 ;  by  'sensitive'  reagents  on 
cards,  131,  137  ff. 

Guessing,  studies  in,  265 

Hansen-Lehmann  experiments  with  un- 
willkurlichcm  Fliistern.  32;  critique 
of,  by  Sidgwick  and  James,  32  f. ; 
Lehmann's  renunciation  of  conclusion 
of,  33;  suggested  further  experi- 
ments, 219  f. 

Harvard  psychological  laboratory,  en- 
gaged in  investigation  of  telepathy, 
28 

"Hodgson,  Dr.  Richard,"  a  seance  'per- 


sonality,' exerted  force  on  the  scales, 
529;  knocked  off  the  cover,  530;  re- 
ported in  error  on  a  judgment  of 
fact,  539 

Holmes,   coincidence   reported   by,   355  f. 

Hypnotized  subject,  argumentation  of 
vision  in,  (Bergson),  174,  (Sau- 
vaire),  175 

Hypnotized  subjects,  in  thought-trans- 
ference experiments,  (Mrs.  Sidg- 
wick), 31;  requisite  for  successful 
results,  (Lehmann),  34  f. 

Illusions,  space,  289  f. 

Imperceptible  differences  in  sensations, 
(Stratton),  173  f . ;  analogous  to  sub- 
liminal  sensations,  225 

Improbable,  the,  must  occur  in  its  due 
proportions,    (Pearson),   331 

Improbable  events,  the  highly,  do  not  oc- 
cur in  empirical  distributions,  321  ff., 
333 

Inductive  probability,  313  ff.;  a  classical 
application  of,  to  results  of  experi- 
ments in  thought-transference,  335  f. ; 
see  Empirical  and  theoretical  central 
measures,  Empirical  and  theoretical 
distributions,  Infinitesimal  proba- 
bility 

Infinitesimal  probability,  316.  346  ff. ;  re- 
liance upon,  296,  308;  reliance  upon, 
not  safe,  (Johnson),  333;  alleged  or 
real  cases  of,  348  ff.,  the  probability 
of  which  can  be  determined,  from 
Monte  Carlo  Roulette.  348  f. ;  pre- 
dictions of  conscription-numbers, 
349 ;  plays  in  French  lottery, 
349  f. ;  throws  of  dice,  350  f. ;  a 
guessing  competition,  351  ff.;  the 
probability  of  which  cannot  be  de- 
termined, from  coincidences  in  Lon- 
don, 353,  coincidences  concerning  an 
engine,  354;  "W.  H.  Wright,"  354; 
a  ring,  355 ;  a  will,  355  f. ;  a  packet 
of  envelopes,  356;  a  roulette  wheel, 
356  ;  a  comet,  356  f. ;  a  lost  bundle  of 
linen,  357  f. ;  a  literary  plot  enacted 
in  life,  358;  a  dream  of  a  drowning, 
358 ;  a  dream  of  a  bequest,  358  f. ; 
a  dream  of  Canon  Kingsley,  359 ; 
simultaneous  inventions  and  literary 
creations,  360;  a  character  in  an 
"April  fool"  letter  whose  double  was 
found,  360  ff. ;  cases  of,  can  be  ex- 
pected to  occur  frequently,  363 ;  may 
be  raised  by  common  associations  to 
a  high  probability,  illustrated  by  ex- 
periment, 363  f. ;  by  coincidences  in 
daily  life.  364;  fallacies  underlying 
reliance   upon,   363,  365 ;   disabilities 


INDEX   OF  SUBJECTS 


633 


of,  may  be  removed  by  substituting 
a  more  favorable  procedure,  265  f. 
Involuntary  signals,  may  play  a  part  in 
thougbt-transference  experiments, 
(Pfungst),  21  f. ;  read  by  Clever 
Hans,  171,  and  Beulah  Miller,  172; 
used  in  "guessing"  numbers,  223 ; 
thought  to  be  eliminated  with  con- 
tact,  (Sidgwick),  469 

James,  on  a  "critical  state"  necessary 
for  thought-transference,  34,  124, 
137.  J49;  in  agreement  with  Leh- 
mann,  34  f. 

"James,  Prof.  Wm,"  a  seance  'person- 
ality,' spoke  in  "independent"  voice, 
509  f.,  while  psychic's  respiration 
was  affected,  518  ff. ;  exerted  force 
on  scales,  528  f.,  leaving  imprint  of 
woven  fabric,  350 ;  gave  encourage- 
ment, 536  ;  silent  on  psychology,  538 ; 
reported  in  error  on  matter  of  fact, 
539 ;  made  an  imprint  of  a  left  hand 
with  his   "right  hand,"  539 

"John  King,"  Eusapia  Palladino's  'con- 
trol,' substituted  phenomena  and 
failed  with  scientific  instruments, 
527,  538 

"Katie,"  Mrs.  "Key's"  'control.'  an  auto- 
matic voice,  509,  510,  514;  anxious 
to  have  the  truth  demonstrated,  515, 
536 ;  lacked  knowledge  of  fact,  527 ; 
reported  phenomena  with  the  scales, 
528  f.,  table,  532,  trumpet,  537,  and 
kymograph.  539  ;  reported  confidence 
in  the  course  of  investigation,  541 

Kent-Rosanoff  word-reaction  test,  285  f. 

"Key,"  Mrs.,  the  "trumpet"  medium  of 
the  California  Psychical  Research 
Society,  503  ff. ;  letter  of  commenda- 
tion to,  from  Hyslop,  547 ;  persuaded 
by  misguided  advisers  to  discontinue 
investigation,  548 

L,  Limit  of  chance  deviation,  formula 
for,  82  f.,  85 ;  identical  with  Sanger's 
limit,  85  f. ;  related  to  Yule's  "prac- 
tical limit,"  86;  tables  for,  89  ff . ; 
charts  for,  91,  93 ;  compared  with 
maximum  deviations  in  results  of 
card-guessing,  87,  92  ff.,  106,  122, 
127  ff.,  expectation  of  reagents,  109, 
no,  results  of  experiments  in  sub- 
liminal impression.  196,  200,  209, 
211  ff.;  related  to  empirical  and 
theoretical  distributions,  317  ff. ;  com- 
pared with  theoretical  central  mea- 
sures, 334  ff. 

"Law  of  relative  frequency,"  Minot's, 
298;  accounts  for  Schmoll's  results, 


(Minot),  299;  would  permit  a. prac- 
ticable code  capable  of  accounting 
for  the  Smith-Blackburn  results, 
(Minot),  299  f.;  not  reckoned  with 
by  English  investigators,  300;  tested 
by  Taylor,  300  f. 

Local  ghosts  and  the  projection  of  vis- 
ual images,  (Martin),  413  ff. ;  cases 
of  apparitions,  413  ff. ;  hallucination 
dependent  upon  strong  visual 
imagery  and  emotional  element.  413. 
416  ff.,  419,  421 ;  questionnaire  re- 
turns on  hallucinations  by  students, 
420 ;  frequency  of  auditory  hallucina- 
tions, 421 

Lotto-block  guessing,  31  ff.;  Mrs.  Sidg- 
wick's  experiments  in,  31  ff.;  suc- 
cessful results  in,  31  ;  negative  re- 
sults in,  34;  see  Thought-transfer- 
ence 

MV,  Mean  variation,  defined,  333 

Magnetic  sense,  experiments  on  (Jas- 
trow  and   Nuttall),   173 

Mal-observation,  365 ;  in  perception  of 
speech,  369 

Mark  Twain's  claim  that  "elaborate  ac- 
cidents cannot  happen,"  360,  363 ;  his 
"Mental  Telegraphy,"  354,  360 

Medium's  subconsciousness,  a  factor  in 
'phenomena,'   (Hyslop),  547 

Mediumistic  possession,  a  type  of  alter- 
nate personality.   (James),  534,  note 

Mediums,  confidence  of,  in  telepathic 
hypothesis,  125;  their  sincerity  and 
ready  cooperation  in  experiments 
with  playing-cards.  125  f. ;  experi- 
ments with,  125  ff.,  503  ff. ;  may 
readilv  impose  upon  great  savants, 
(Moll),  20  _ 

Mental  communism,  see  Psychical  com- 
munism 

Mental  contribution  to  the  perception  of 
speech,  see  Sound  assimilation 

Mental  habit,  the  influence  of,  upon 
judgment,  230  ff. ;  a  genus  of  sub- 
liminal influence,  230;  applies  to 
numbers,  in  census  age  returns, 
231  ff.  ;  in  terms  of  criminal  sen- 
tence. 234. ;  in  estimates  of  star-mag- 
nitudes, 240  ff.,  294  ff. ;  in  students' 
grades,  247  ff. ;  in  thermometric 
readings,  249  ff. ;  in  estimates  of 
cloudiness,  252 ;  in  readings  of  the 
rain-gauge,  252;  in  estimates  of  time 
from  kymograph  time-records,  252  f. ; 
in  ages  of  the  Latin  dead,  255 ;  in 
estimates  of  star-transits,  255  ff. ; 
in  estimates  of  time,  262  f. ;  in  esti- 
mates of  space,  263  ff. ;  in  guessing  of 
seeds  in  a  squash,  265  f. ;  in  guessing 


634 


INDEX   OF  SUBJECTS 


of  beans  in  a  bottle,  266  f. ;  applies 
to  guessing  of  numbers  in  thought- 
transference  experiments,  268;  to 
guessing  of  spots  on  playing-cards, 
268  f. ;  to  guessing  of  the  suit  of 
playing-cards,  278 ;  to  the  guessing 
of  particular  playing-cards,  279  f . ;  to 
the  guessing  of  letters,  280  f. ;  in- 
fluences judgment  of  both  unskilled 
and  skilled  observers,  250;  its  form 
has  permanent  personal  character- 
istics, 250,  251,  258,  259;  was  early 
noticed  by  Beloch,  Hartmann  and 
Peirce,  255 ;  explanations  of,  281  ff . ; 
applications  of,  to  experiments  in 
thought-transference,  291  ff. ;  to  ex- 
periments on  subliminal  impression, 
309  ff. ;  see  Number-habit,  Number- 
preferences,  "Personal  scale" 

,  Explanatory         considerations, 

281  ff. ;  superstitious  notions  of  num- 
ber, 282  f. ;  odd  numbers  satisfying, 
282,  conspicuous,  283;  natural  phe- 
nomena, 283  ;  prime  numbers,  283  ; 
Chromaesthesia,  283  f. ;  associations, 
284  ff. ;  based  on  number-experiences, 
284  f . ;  numbers  personified,  284  f. ; 
acquired  associations  with  letters, 
cards,  etc.,  285  ;  psychical  communism 
shown  by  word-reaction  test,  285  f., 

307 

.  Formula  for  measuring  extent 

of  influence  of,  292;  statistical 
method  for  eliminating,  293  f. 

,  Influence  of,  in  experiments  on 

thought-transference,  291  ff. ;  not 
usually  large.  294:  precautions 
against,  taken  by  the  English  investi- 
gators, 303  ff.,  inadequate  when  free 
materials  were  used, (Minot),  299  ff. ; 
possible  influence  of,  in  Pickering's 
experiments,  296  f . ;  is  most  likely 
with  "free  drawings,"  297  ff.,  and 
other  indefinite  material,  .296,  305 ; 
influence  of,  in  experiments  on  sub- 
liminal impression,  negligible,  209  ff. ; 
see  Psychical  communism 

Mental  habits,  other,  besides  number- 
habit,  276  ff. ;  are  unconscious  in- 
fluences, 281  ;  see  Psychical  com- 
munism 

"Mental  telepathist,"  the  making  of  a, 
118  ff. 

Milton's  "Paradise  Lost"  may  be  pro- 
duced by  chance  drawings  of  letters 
from  a  bag,  (Venn),  149,  note  229; 
but  such  an  occurrence  is  "incon- 
ceivably unlikely,"  316,  note  140 

Monte  Carlo  roulette,  plays  at,  348; 
Pearson's    investigation    of,    329  ff. ; 


not    a    scientific    game    of    chance, 
(Pearson),  330  f. 

Myers'  dictum  concerning  the  inability 
of  the  human  mind  to  make  impar- 
tial random  choices,  304,  325,  note  151 

"Myers,  F.  W.  H.,"  a  seance  'person- 
ality,' revealed  lack  of  knowledge  to 
Lodge,  539,  note 

n,  number  of  experiments  in  a  set,  81, 
95 ;  formula  for  finding,  to  prove 
extra-chance  cause,  L  being  constant, 
83  f. 

"Nasium,  John,"  an  imaginary  person 
whose  double  was  found,  361 

New  England  Meteorological  Society, 
observations  of,  show  influence  of 
mental  habit,  252,  253 

Nonsense-syllables,  used  in  experiments 
in  Sound  assimilation,  373  ff. ;  lists 
of,  450  f. 

Number-habit,  267 ;  desirability  of  study 
of,  (Titchener),  229;  in  Lotto-block 
guessing,  43 ;  a  general  mental  trait, 
271  ff. ;  individual  differences  in,  252, 
271  ff. ;  general  agreement  in,  270, 
273  ff.,  311;  distribution  of,  271  ff. ; 
see  Mental  habit,  Psychial  commun- 
ism 

Number-preferences,  individual  differ- 
ences in,  268  f.,  271  ff. ;  common,  270, 
273 ;   vary  with   conditions,  268 

"N"-Ray  delusion,  the,  495  ff.,  illustrates 
the  fallacy  of  the  "fagot  theory," 
500  f. 

p,  Probability  of  the  single  occurrence  of 
an  event,  80  f. ;  95 

P,  Probability  of,  or  the  probable  fre- 
quency of,  an  event.  97.  128.  337  ff., 
346  ff . ;  of  a  distribution  of  events 
(closeness  of  fit),  108,  315  ff.;  for- 
mulae for,  80,  95  f.,  1 10 

PE„.  Probable  error  of  the  mean,  de- 
fined, 333  ;  an  application  of  the  law 
of  chances,  333  f. ;  formula  for,  105, 
333 ;  formula  for,  based  on  the  MV , 
378 

Paris  observatory,  observations  from, 
show  influence  of  mental  habit,  256 

"Patience  Worth,"  316 

Pearson's  "Closeness  of  fit"  and  its  prob- 
ability, formulae  for,  no.  315;  in- 
vestigation of  Monte  Carlo  roulette, 
329  ff. 

"Pelliam,  George,"  a  late  'control'  of  Mrs. 
Piper,  thought  by  Hods-son  to  be  a 
veritable  personality  that  has  sur- 
vived death,  7 

"Personal  equation,"  260  ff. ;  see  "Per- 
sonal scale" 

"Personal  scale."  the  same  as  V  iquation 
dicimale   and    Peirce's    "time-scale," 


INDEX   OF  SUBJECTS 


635 


256;  distinguished  from  the  "per- 
sonal equation,"  260  ft.;  influences 
estimates  of  ages,  star-magnitudes, 
students'  grades,  etc.,  265,  when  it  is 
dependent  upon  number-preferences 
and  a  psychical  communism,  286 ;  in- 
fluences more  especially  estimates  of 
temperature,  rain-fall,  star-transits, 
etc.,  where  it  is  free  from  the 
influence  of  number-preferences, 
286  ff. ;  is  independent  of  kind  of  in- 
strument, 258,  259,  of  method  of  ob- 
serving, 258,  259,  of  special  senses, 
260,  261  ;  is  dependent  upon  calibra- 
tion-marks, 260,  261,  and  upon  cali- 
bration-spacing, 263  ff. ;  explanatory 
considerations,  286  ff. ;  not  owing  to 
number-preferences,  287  f. ;  depends 
upon  calibration-marks,  287,  calibra- 
tion-spaces, 289,  tendency  for  "like" 
judgments,  289,  for  underestimating 
small  differences,  289,  space  illusions, 
289  f .,  methods  of  estimation,  290,  im- 
perfections of  the  eye.  290 

0(7)  value,  table  for,  referred  to,  81; 
short  table  of,  for  varying  values  of 
y,  314,  note 

"Phillips,"  the  late  wireless  operator  of 
the  unfortunate  Titanic  "operated" 
the  telegraph  instrument,  528,  but 
seems  to  have  lost  his  knowledge  of 
telegraphy,  539 

"Phinuit,"  Mrs.  Piper's  'control,'  thought 
by  Hodgson  to  be  a  fictitious  "spirit," 
7 ;  by  Podmore  to  be  an  etymological 
descendent  of  Cocke's  "Finne,"  541  ; 
given  test  for  telepathy  or  lucidity 
(Professor  and  Mrs.  Sidgwick),  142 

"Physical  phenomena,"  relation  of,  to  the 
psychic's  body,  524  ff. 

Physical  Societv  of  London,  publications 
of,  reveal  the  «-ray  delusion,  495 

Pikes  Peak  weather  service,  observations 
of,   show   influence  of  mental  habit, 

249 

Piper,  Mrs.,  given  card-test  for  telep- 
athy, (James),  142;   see  "Phinuit" 

Poisson's  theorem,  anplied  to  thought- 
transference  results,  82  ff. 

Population  by  age,  shows  influence  of 
common  number-habits,  231  ff 

Prediction  of  number  of  male  and  fe- 
male births  and  of  deaths  for  a 
week  in  London.  351  f . ;  of  conscrip- 
tion-numbers in  Belgium,  349 

Preyer's  use  of  inductive  probability  in 
discrediting  Richet's  results,  falla- 
cious, 335  ff. 

Probability,  of  a  deviation  less  than  40, 
determination  of,  334,  note  165  ;  of  an 


event,  depends  upon  number  of  cases, 
illustrations  to  show  that,  346  ff. ;  of 
k  occurrences  in  n  trials,  formula 
for,    (Laurent),  96 

,  Inductive,     313  ff. ;       provided 

for  in  "control"  experiments,  313,  in 
Lotto-block  guessing,  35,  in  card- 
guessing,  52,  in  experiments  on  the 
"feeling  of  being  stared  at,"  147; 
conforms  to  theoretical  probability 
in  both  distributions,  3'4ff-.  333, 
and  central  measures,  333  ff.,  345  f- ; 
see  Empirical  and  theoretical  cen- 
tral measures,  Empirical  and  theo- 
retical distributions 

,  Theory  of,  312  ff.;    and  form- 


ulae   derived    therefrom,    an    instru- 
ment of  precision  for  detecting  ex- 
tra-chance  cause,  345 ;    a  means  of 
resolving   doubt   concerning   alleged 
supernormal     psychical     phenomena, 
229,  313  f .,   333 ;     confirmed   by   em- 
pirical   results,    313  ff.,    333.    in    the 
distributions      of      chance      events, 
314  ff.,     328,     333,     and     in     central 
measures      from      sets      of     chance 
events,    333  ff.,    345  f- ;    justified    by 
statistical  results,  108;  formulas  de- 
rived from,  applied  to  single  meas- 
ures  in   card-guessing,  80  ff.,   105  ff., 
127  ff.,  in  experiments  on  subliminal 
impression,   185,   194  ff.,  in  series  of 
chance  events,  333  ff- ;  applied  to  dis- 
tributions of  R  cases  in  card-guess- 
ing, 95  ff.,  108,  nof.,  to  distributions 
of  events  in  empirical  chance  series, 
314  ff- 
Probable    events,     the     least,    occur    in 
empirical     distributions     of     chance 
events  with  a  frequency  in  close  con- 
formance with  the  law   of  chances, 
321  ff.,    333,    and    the    relatively    or 
highly  improbable  in  their  due  pro- 
portions,     (Pearson), 
363 
Pseudo-prophecy,   a   case 

411  f. 
Psychical      communism, 

from  the  fact  that  minds  are  simi- 
larlv  constituted,  285;  makes  psy- 
chology possible,  285  f. ;  permits  de- 
velopment of  language.  285  f. ;  recog- 
nized bv  writers  (Minot),  298  f., 
(Podmore),  305;  illustrated  by 
word-reaction  experiment,  285,  and 
by  common  chain  of  ideas,  307 ;  pro- 
hibits reliance  upon  an  infinitesimal 
probability,  296;  precludes  use  of 
free    materials    in    thought-transfer- 


331,  346  ff-, 
of,  (Martin), 
285 ;      results 


636 


INDEX   OF  SUBJECTS 


ence  experiments,  305;  denies  value 
to  "spontaneous  cases"  of  telepathy, 
306  f. ;  works  for  remarkable  co- 
incidences, 363  f. ;  makes  an  appar- 
ently improbable  event  highly  prob- 
able, 346,  363  f. 

Psychical  research,  foundation  for,  at 
Stanford  University,  (Angell), 
xixff. ;  slow  progress  of,  (Angell), 
xx ;  psychological  laboratories  fav- 
orable toward,  (Angell),  xx ;  psy- 
chological training  requisite  for, 
(Angell),  xxif. ;  library  of,  pro- 
vided for  by  Mr.  T.  W.  Stanford, 
(Angell),  xxi,  551 

Psychological  laboratories,  favorable  to- 
ward psychical  research,  (Angell), 
xx ;  hospitable  to  investigation  of 
telepathy— Clark,  Cornell,  Harvard 
—21,  28 

training  necessary  for  psychi- 
cal research,  (Angell),  xxif.; 
for  investigation  of  telepathy. 
(Tuckett),  27,  (Scripture),  28;  501 

q,  the  complement  of  p,  the  probability 
of  the  single  non-occurrence  of  an 
event,  80  f.,  95 

r,  Coefficient  of  correlation,  formulas 
for,  (Brown),  202,  note 

Rain-fall,  estimates  of,  show  influence  of 
mental  habit,  252 

Relation  of  the  "physical  phenomena" 
to  the  psychic's  body,  524  ff. 

Relation  of  the  seance  'personalities'  to 
the   psychic's   mind,   535  ff. 

Relation  of  the  "voices"  to  the  psychic's 
psychological    processes,    506  ff. 

Respiration  curves  of  the  psychic  while 
"voices"  are  speaking  in  dark  seance, 
516  ff. 

Rogers-Abbott  case,  mentioned  in  Hy- 
slop's  letter  to  Mrs.  "Key,"  547 

"Roland,  Colonel,"  one  of  Mrs.  "Key's" 
'controls,'  uses  "independent"  voice 
through  'trumpet,'  509;  exerted 
force  on  scales,  529;  wiped  off 
cover  with  fabric,  530;  handled 
'trumpet'  with  sooty  fabric,  530; 
shoved  table,  532;  perplexed  about 
printer's  ink,  537;  in  error  on  mat- 
ter of  fact,  537  f. ;  misused  force, 
537  f- ;  reported  delighted  with  prog- 
ress of  investigation,  541 

Romanes  and  Crichton-Browne,  test 
Smith-Blackburn  procedure  in 
thought-transference  experiments, 
490 

Roulette,  Pearson's  investigation  of 
Monte  Carlo,  329  ff. 


Roulette-ball  throws,  runs  in,  not  in  ac- 
cord with  the  law  of  chances,  328  ff. 

Roulette  wheel,  coincidence  concerning 
a,  356 

Royal  Alfred  Observatory,  astronomer 
of,  finds  influence  of  mental  habits 
in  observations,  249 

S,  inverted,  showing  space  illusion,  289 

0,  Standard  deviation,  formula  for,  the 
empirical,  105,  333,  the  theoretical, 
334.  note  164;  is  the  "measure  of 
dispersion,"  334;  becomes  the 
"standard  error"  when  p  is  known, 
334;  is  used  by  Yule  as  a  practical 
limit  of  chance  deviation  (36),  86, 
317,   330;  see  Yule's  practical   limit 

Savants,  great,  unable  to  spread  their 
authority  in  other  fields  over  psy- 
chical research  (Angell),  xxi; 
(Bramwell),  19,  (Moll),  20;  readily 
imposed  upon  by  mediums,  (Moll), 
20 

Science,    (Jordan),    v 

Scientific  method  in  psychical  research, 
(Jordan),   v;    (Angell),   xix ;   542  f. 

"Seance  personalities,"  relation  of,  to 
the   psychic's   mind,   535  ff. 

phenomena,     investigation     of, 

503  ff. ;  see  "Trumpet"  Medium 

Sensorial   gateway,   principle  of,  31,   501 

Sensory  indications,  may  operate  with- 
out being  discerned  by  the  person 
whom  they  influence.    (Stout),   173 

Seybert  Commission,  referred  to  by  Hall, 
47i;  a  medium  of,  failed  in  a  Cali- 
fornia Society  test,  531 ;  purpose  and 
findings  of,  (Angell),  xix  f. ;  work 
of,  in  addition  to  professional  duties, 
(Angell),  xxi 

Sidgwick's,  Mrs.,  experiments  in  Lotto- 
block  guessing,  31  ff. 

"Significant"  deviation,  a,  not  found  in 
sets  of  50  guesses  of  playing-cards, 
66,  92 ;  in  sets  of  500,  87,  92 ;  or  in  a 
set  of  5000,  94 ;  analyses  of  data  may 
reveal,  66  ff. ;  may  be  determined 
by  use  of  mathematical  formulae, 
79  ff-,  96f.,  108.  or  by  use  of  tables 
and  charts,  88  ff. ;  in  values  expected 
by  reagents,  109  ff. ;  in  results  from 
corneal  reflection,  121  ff. ;  in  results 
from  subliminal  impression,  185, 
188,  196,  200,  100,  216,  217  f.,  220; 
in  data  showing  influence  of  mental 
habit,  269  ff.,  295:  in  chance  events. 
324  ff.,  344  f. ;  falls  beyond  the  dis- 
tribution of  chance  events,  334,  de- 
pendent upon  number  of  observa- 
tions, 346  ff. ;  see  L 

"Simple   sampling,"    (Yule),  334 

Smith-Blackburn  experiments,  the.  299  f., 
300,  302,  303  ;  477  ff. 


INDEX   OF  SUBJECTS 


637 


Society  for  Psychical  Research,  present 
work  of,  3,  535 ;  officers  quoted  on 
telepathy,  5,  7,  18,  19,  24  ff.,  29  f.,  34, 
124,  226,  302  ff. ;  began  its  work  on 
the  telepathic  problem,  17;  has  re- 
turned to  it,  23 ;  work  of,  referred 
to,  (Moll),  19  f.,  (Hall),  21,  28,  48  f., 
470  ff.,  482  f.,  (Minot),  298  f. ;  420  f., 
461  ff.;    (Tuckett)    490 

Sound  assimilation,  experiments  in, 
367  ff. ;  need  of  experiment  in,  369  f. ; 
problem  stated,  371 ;  extent  of  work 
done,  371  f. ;  lists  of  nonsense-sylla- 
bles used,  373  ff.,  450  f. ;  number 
of  experiments  with  the  various 
lists,  375 ;  mental  contribution  to 
perception  of  syllables  with  initial 
and  final  consonantal  sounds,  378  f., 
401  f. ;  of  syllables  with  either  an  in- 
itial or  a  final  consonantal  sound,  380, 
401  ;  of  the  respective  sounds,  381  ; 
of  English  speech,  383  f.,  401  ;  dicta- 
tions of  simulated  English  text, 
386  ff.,  made  use  of  most  frequent 
substitutions  of  sounds,  386 ;  men- 
tal contribution  to  perception  of 
English  text,  395  ff.,  401  f. ;  not  suffi- 
ciently recognized  in  psychical  re- 
search, 402 ;  perception  of  a  word 
not  a  purely  auditory  affair,  403,  but 
is  subject  to  process  of  assimilation 
in  common  with  perception  through 
other  senses,  403  ;  visual  assimilation 
illustrated,  403  f. ;  results  consistent 
with  psychological  doctrine,  as 
shown  by  quotations  from  the  liter- 
ature, 404  ff. 

Space  illusions,  2S9  f. 

Speech,  mental  contribution  to  the  per- 
ception of,  (James),  368;  see  Sound 
assimilation 

Spiritistic    advisers,    illogical    stand    of, 

S48 

Star-magnitudes,  estimates  of,  show  in- 
fluence of  mental  habit,  240  ff.,  294 ; 
estimates  of,  tested  for  a  possible 
disturbance  by  thought-transference, 
(  Pickering),  294 

Star-transits,  estimates  of,  show  influ- 
ence of  mental  habit,  255  ff. 

Statistical  formulae,  applied  to  results  of 
card-guessing  by  normal  reagents, 
105  ff.,  by  professional  'psychics', 
128;  see   Probability,  theory  of 

method  of  experiment  in  card- 
guessing,  vindicated  by  results  with 
corneal  reflection,  123 

"Stead,  William,"  a  seance  'personality,' 
could  not  recall  his  daughter's 
name,  538 


Stimulus,  an  unnoticed,  can  still  affect 
consciousness,    (Eckener),   173 

Students,  favorably  disposed  toward  the 
telepathic  hypothesis,  xxii,  37,  51, 
123,  145,  152,  164  f. 

,   grades   of,    show   influence   of 

mental  habit,  247  ff. ;  cannot  be  made 
accurate  on  percentile  scale,  248;  re- 
liability of  grades  of,  tested  by 
Starch,  248,  note  21 

Subconscious,  an  experimental  study  of 
the,  (Martin),  422  ff. ;  image  method 
employed,  422 ;  results  concerning 
voluntary  and  involuntary  imagery 
and  memory,  422  ff. ;  the  image 
method  vs.  the  automatic  writing 
and  speaking  methods,  426  ff. ;  vs. 
the  pathological  and  psychoanalytical 
methods,  427  f. 

phenomena,  influence  of  men- 
tal habits  upon  judgment,  a  form  of, 
230 

Subliminal  classification,  alleged  (Sidis), 
182,  184 ;  negative  results  on,  185, 
204,  221,  224 

impression,  an   explanation   for 

telepathy,  (Lehmann),  33,  171, 
(Tuckett),  173,  note  2,  (Pfungst), 
21  f..  (Murray),  226;  operative  in 
thi  mght-transference  experiments, 
(Podmore),  493;  facilitates  percep- 
tion, 202;  influence  of,  related  to 
phenomena  of  dissociation  of  per- 
sonality,  hypnotism,  automatic  writ- 
ing, crystal-gazing,  (Sidis),  177,  psy- 
chical research  should  investigate, 
(Bergson,  Balfour),  170;  highly  im- 
portant for  psychology,  (James), 
184;  literature  bearing  on,  172  ff.; 
exneriments    on,     (Dunlap),     176  {., 

(Titchener  and  Pyle),  177.  (Mangro 
and  Washburn).  177.  (Sidis),  177  ff-. 
Strnh,  Shaw,  and  Washburn),  186  ff. ; 
with  Wirthian  tachistoscope,  191  ff. ; 
with  Wundtian  tachistoscope,  198  ff.; 
through  foveal  vision,  191  ff. ; 
through  peripheral  vision,  205  ff. ; 
from  corneal  reflections  of  playing- 
cards,  214  ff. ;  from  playing-cards  at 
a  distance,  217  ff. ;  from  whispering 
of  letters  and  digits,  220  f. ;  from 
whispering  of  playing-cards,  222; 
from  various  stimuli :  posture, 
(Pfungst),  171;  crepitation  of  elec- 
tro-magnet. (Jastrow  and  Nuttall), 
173;  differences  in  brightness, 
(  P.irce  and  Jastrow),  173;  differ- 
ences in  weights,  (Stratton),  173  f. ; 
geometric  figures,  (Moore),  174; 
letters,  174;  touch  of  playing-cards, 


638 


INDEX   OF  SUBJECTS 


(Vermin,  174  f.  ;  names  and  signs, 
(Scripture),  175;  odor  of  a  flower, 
(Jerusalem),  175  f. ;  odor  of  coal- 
smoke,  (Thomas),  176;  impercep- 
tible shadows,  (Dunlap),  176, 
(Titchener  and  Pyle),  177;  impar- 
ceptible  lines,  (Mangro  and  Wash- 
burn), 177;  letters  and  digits  ex- 
posed at  a  distance,  (Sidis),  178  ff., 
(Stroh,  Shaw  and  Washburn), 
186  ff.;  whispered  letters,  (Stroh, 
Shaw  and  Washburn),  187;  letters 
and  digits  exposed  instantaneously, 
190  ff. ;  corneal  reflections  of  playing- 
cards,  214  ff. ;  whispering  of  letters 
and  digits,  220  f. ;  whispering  of  play- 
ing-cards, 222  ;  application  of  mental 
habit  to  experiments  on,  309  ff. 

perception,  of  geometric  figures, 

(Moore),  174;  of  letters,  (Coover), 
174;  of  playing-cards,  (  Mrs.  Verrall ), 
174;  as  an  explanation  of  thought- 
transference,  171  ;  influences  judg- 
ment, 173  ff.;  effects  reproduction 
of  experience,  175  ff.;  see  Subliminal 
impression 

"Sufficient  evidence,"  is  evidence  that 
will  convince  the  scientific  world, 
(  Sidgwick ) ,  463 

"Suggestion  mentale,"  (Richet),  an- 
nounced, 29;  results  indicative  of, 
(Richet),  48  f. ;  method  of  calcula- 
tion, questioned.  (Gurney),  24; 
should  be  verified,  (Richet,  Gurney, 
Sidgwick,  Myers),  23  f.,  50;  ques- 
tioned. (James  1.  34,  47.  IJ4.  149 
:rnorrrml  powers,  attributed  by  James 
to  Mrs.  Piper,  3  f. ;  attributed  by 
Flournoy  to  Helene  "Smith,"  4;  at- 
tributed by  Podmore  to  automatists, 
4;  see   Survival 

Superstition,  among  the  students  of  the 
State  Normal  Schools.  (Dresslar), 
282 ;  connected  with  numbers,  282 

Survival,  evidence  of,  in  trance  utter- 
ances, (Myers),  5;  in  the  utterances 
of  "George  Pelham,"  (Hodgson), 
7;  in  Piper  sittings,  (Lodge),  8;  in 
the  Piper  sittings,  may  be  reduced 
to  telepathy  from  the  sitter,  (Pod- 
more),  9;  or  from  a  third  living 
person,  (Lang),  10,  (  Podmore),  10  f. ; 
in  cross-correspondences,  (John- 
son), 12,  12  f.,  may  be  reduced  to 
telepathy,  (Johnson),  11,  1 1  f., 
(Pigou),   12,   (Podmore),   13 

'Telepathic  a  trois,"  6;  in  Mrs.  Piper's 
utterances,  (Lang),  10;  in  utter- 
ances of  trance  personalities,  (Pod- 
more), 10  f. ;  is  not  proved, 
CLodge),  13  f. 


Telepathy,  importance  of  the  prob- 
lem of,  3 ;  threatens  proof  of  sur- 
vival, 3,  5  f.,  6  f. ;  called  by  Lodge 
"the  minimum  hypothesis,"  5 ; 
from  the  "sitter's"  conscious  or  sub- 
liminal experience,  6  ff. ;  accounts 
for  independent  reproduction  of  sim- 
ilar ideas  through  two  or  more 
automatists  ( cross-correspondences, 
simple),  (Johnson,  Pigou),  11;  and 
for  such  reproduction  of  ideas  the 
significant  relation  between  which 
is  only  later  discovered  (cross-cor- 
respondences, complementary ) , 
(Johnson),  1 1  f .,  (Pigou),  12;  its 
dominating  role  challenged,  13  ff. ; 
as  supported  by  Telepathie  a  trois, 
is  not  proved,  (Lodge).  13  f. :  as 
supported  by  "spontaneous  cases" 
(apparitions),  is  not  proved.  (Pod- 
more), 14  f.,  (Carrington,  Tuckett. 
James),  15;  as  supported  by  direct 
experiment,  is  not  proved,  (  Hy- 
slop),  1=;,  (James),  15  f.,  (Jastrow), 
16,  (Thomas),  16  f.,  (Hermit  of 
Prague).  28.  (Tuckett.  Minot, 
Hall),  502;  the  present  status  of, 
17  ff.,  409  ff. ;  still  a  claimant  for 
scientific  recognition,  (Mrs.  Sidir- 
wick,  Podmore.  Constable).  18, 
(Tuckett),  18  f.,  22,  (Thomas, 
Bramwell),  19.  (Moll).  19  f-, 
(Newcomb),  20,  (Angell),  22; 
its  acceptance  unwarranted  and 
ifortunate,  (Jastrow),  21,  (Hall). 
21.  501  ;  based  upon  experi- 
mental errors,  (Pfungst),  21  f . ;  no 
scientifically-minded  psychologist  be- 
lieves in  it,  (Titchener),  22:  nega- 
tive results  in,  (Bramwell),  iq, 
(Moll-Dessoir),  20,  (Hall).  21. 
(S.  P.  R.).  2^  (Am.  S.  P.  R.).  24; 
is  not  a  subject  of  controversy, 
Barrett's  dictum  that.  502,  contro- 
verted by  Tuckett.  Minot.  and  Hall, 
502;  further  work  in,  imperative, 
23  ff . ;  work  on,  still  being  done  by 
Lodge  and  the  S.  P.  R.,  23 ;  early 
successful  experimental  results  in 
need  of  verification,  (Richet),  23  f . 
(Myers.  Sidgwick.  Gurney).  24. 
(Stewart).  24  f..  (Podmore.  James, 
S.  P.  R.),  25,  (Lod<?e,  Rertrson. 
Thomas),  26,  (Tuckett).  27;  psy- 
chological method  in  investigating, 
necessary,  (Tuckett,  Scripture), 
27  f.,  501  ;  psychological  laboratories 
hospitable  to — Clark,  Cornell,  Har- 
vard,— 21.  28;  prosram  of  the  "Her- 
mit of  Prague"  commended,  28 ; 
through  emotion,   (Newcomb),   144; 


INDEX   OF  SUBJECTS 


639 


a  common  faculty  shared  by  all  men, 
(Myers,  Richet,  Gurney,  Bergson), 
29;  should  be  tested  by  further  ex- 
periments, (Lodge),  30  (Richet), 
34 ;  students  favorably  disposed  to- 
ward, xxii,  37,  51,  123,  145,  152, 
164  f. ;  "experienced"  in  the  labora- 
tory by  normal  reagents,  117,  by  'sen- 
sitives,' 142  f. ;  negative  results  from 
normal  reagents,  46  f.,  124,  152,  167, 
from  'sensitives,'  129  f,  142;  may 
require  a  "critical  state,"  (James), 
34,  124,  137,  149,  (Lehmann),  34  f. ; 
see  Thought-transference,  "Feeling 
of  being  stared  at" 

Telepathy-at-a-distance,  3 ;  explains 
cross-correspondences,  (Pigou).  II ; 
evidence  for,  without  weight,  (Pod- 
more),  14  f. ;  illustrates  psychical 
communism,  (Tuckett),  301  f. ;  sec 
Thought-transference,    long-distance 

Telephone  used  in  experiments  in  sound 
assimilation,  373 

Thermometric  readings  show  influence 
of  mental  habit,  249  ff. 

Thompson-Gifford  case,  mentioned  in 
Hy slop's   letter  to   Mrs.   "Key,"   547 

Thought-transference,  definition  of,  3 ; 
most  likely  of  evanescent  ideas  on 
the  threshold  between  consciousness 
and  sub-consciousness,  (Flournoy), 
9  f . ;  experiments  on,  29  ff;  a  com- 
mon faculty  shared  by  all  men, 
(Myers,  Richet,  Gurney.  Bergson), 
29;  desirability  of  testing  normal 
persons  for,  (Lodge),  30;  extent  of 
our  experiments  on,  30:  (1)  Guess- 
ing of  Lotto-block  numbers,  31  ff. ; 
unsettled  status  of  old  results,  31  ff. ; 
method  of  experiment,  35  ff. ;  re- 
sults, 38  ff..  46  f. ;  imagery,  45  f., 
tendency  to  project  subjective  ex- 
perience, 47.  (2)  Guessing  of  play- 
ing-cards, by  normal  reagents,  48  ff. : 
old  successful  results,  48  f. ;  old  neg- 
ative results,  49 ;  suitability  of  cards 
as  material,  49  f. ;  reagents,  50  f. ; 
method,  51  ff. ;  results,  54  ff. ;  rela- 
tion between  R  cases  and  congruity 
of  imagery,  71  ff. ;  relation  between 
R  cases  and  the  feeling  of  certainty, 
73  ff. ;  relation  between  R  cases  and 
variation  in  distance,  77,  and  in 
time,  77  f. ;  test  for  retarded  effect, 
78  f. ;  application  of  probability  for- 
mula? to  central  measures,  80  ff. ; 
tables  and  charts  of  the  limits  of 
chance  deviation,  89  ff . ;  comparison 
of  the  empirical  with  their  theoret- 
ical distributions,  95  ff.,  108;  appli- 
cation  of   usual    statistical    formulae 


to  central  and  other  single  measures, 
105  ff. ;  statistical  expectation  of  re- 
agents, 109  f. ;  analysis  of  experi- 
ence, no  ff. ;  variation  in  certainty  of 
the  guess,  112  f . ;  imagery',  H2ff.; 
elements  of  experience  upon  which 
feeling  of  certainty  depended,  113  ff.; 
sensory  and  motor  automatisms,  117; 
telepathy  "experienced"  in  the  labo- 
ratory, 117;  application  of  our  re- 
sults in  the  making  of  a  "mental 
telepathist,"  iiSff. ;  control  series 
with  corneal  reflection,  121  ff.;  con- 
clusion, 123  f. ;  may  require  for  suc- 
cess a  "critical  state"  of  experience, 
(James),  34,  124,  (Lehmann),  34  i. 
(3)  Experiments  with  'sensitive'  re- 
agents, 125  ff. ;  half  of  them  spirit- 
istic 'mediums,'  125  ;  results,  126  ff. ; 
te'st  for  retarded  effect,  129 ;  psy- 
chological analysis  of  experience, 
130  ft'.;  the  professional  'psychics,' 
130  ff. ;  the  private  psychics,  137  ff. ; 
conclusion,  1421".;  possible  factors 
of  error  in  :  mental  habit,  and  induc- 
tive probability,  229;  influence  of 
mental  habit  in  experiments  on, 
291  ff. ;  statistical  method  for  elimin- 
ating  effect  of  mental  habit  from  the 
results  of  experiments  on,  293  f. ; 
subliminal  perceptions  enter  into, 
(Pfungst),  21  f.,  (Lehmann),  33; 
(Tuckett),  173,  note  12,  (Murray), 
226,  (Podmore),  493;  as  possible 
error  in  estimations  of  star-magni- 
tudes, tested,  (Pickering),  294  ff. ; 
see  "Feeling  of  being  stared  at," 
Telepathy. 

,  long  distance,  experiments  in, 

452  ff. ;  desirability  of  experiments 
in,  (Podmore,  Verrall),  452;  alleged, 
(Paracelsus),  452;  instructions  for 
experiments  in,  453  ff. ;  blanks  used 
in,  456  ff. ;  results  of,  459  ff. ;  could 
be  conducted  between  distant  per- 
sons especially  en  rapport,  460;  see 
Telepathy-at-a-distance 

,   grounds   for   scientific   caution 

in  the  acceptance  of  the  "proof"  of, 
461  ff. :  caution  counseled  by  mem- 
bers    of     the     English     Committee, 

461  f..  who  appreciated  methods  of 
science  and  criterion  of  truth,  yet 
regarded  the  evidence  for  thought- 
transference  as  sufficient   for  proof, 

462  f. ;  scientific  world  not  con- 
vinced, 463 ;  characteristics  of  the 
evidence  illustrated:  (1)  By  the 
Creery  Experiments,  463  ff.,  to  which 
Gurney  referred  as  convincing,  463 ; 
mathematical  proof  of  extra-chance 


640 


INDEX   OF  SUBJECTS 


influence,  463  f . ;  collusion  and  error 
thought  eliminated,  464  f. ;  peculiar- 
ities of  results  pointed  out  to  support 
telepathic  hypothesis,  465  ff. ;  publi- 
cation of  the  apparently  authentic 
evidence  elicited  criticism  specifying 
sources  of  error,  468  ff.,  (Donkin), 
469  f.,  (Hall),  470  ff.;  fraud  de- 
tected in  further  experiments,  472  f. ; 
further  publication  of  older  results 
suppressed,  474;  the  peculiarities  of 
results  used  to  support  the  telepathic 
hypothesis  strongly  indicate  the  use 
of  code,  474  ff.  (2)  By  the  Smith- 
Blackburn  Experiments,  477  ff. ;  sam- 
ples shown,  478  f. ;  experiments  with 
drawings,  479  ff. ;  detailed  description 
of,  480  f. ;  illustration  of  the  famous 
No.  22.  481  ;  criticism  of  the  series, 
(Hall),  482  f.,  (Minot),  299  f-,  483; 
reply  by  Podmore,  483  f. ;  Black- 
burn's confession  of  code,  484  ff., 
487  ff . ;  denial  by  Smith,  486  f .,  489 ; 
Society  expresses  confidence  in 
Smith,  490;  Tuckett's  resume,  490; 
Romanes  and  Crichton-Browne 
scented  fraud,  490 ;  re-publication  of 
series,  suppressed  by  the  Society, 
491 ;  internal  evidence  of  code,  491  f. ; 
external  evidence  of  code,  492 ; 
other  evidence  published  by  the  So- 
ciety not  free  from  criticism,  493 ; 
criticism  of  the  Guthrie-Birchall 
series,  (Moll),  403.  (Hall),  493; 
Smith  acted  as  agent  in  the  Society's 
best  series  with  hypnotized  reagents, 
493 ;  the  Society  not  alive  to  the 
difficulties  of  such  investigation,  494  ; 
their  "fagot  theory"  fallacious,  495, 
illustrated  by  the  »-ray  delusion, 
495  ff. ;  summary  of  the  situation, 
499  ff. ;  technical  experience  in  ex- 
perimental psychology  is  pre-requi- 
site  for  investigators,  27  f.,  501  ; 
hope  for  the  Society  lies  in  the  pro- 
gram of  the  "Hermit  of  Prague," 
502 

"Time-scale,"  Peirce's,  256;  see  "Per- 
sonal scale." 

"Truman,  Dr.,"  one  of  the  'controls'  of 
Mrs.  "Key,"  505,  spoke  in  "inde- 
pendent" 'trumpet'  voice,  509  f., 
while  psychic's  respiration  was  af- 
fected, 515  ff.;  pleased  with  the  ex- 
periments, 536 ;  commended  the  in- 
vestigation, 541. 

"Trumpet"  medium,  investigation  with 
a,  503  ff.;  Mrs.  "Key,"  a  semi-pro- 
fessional medium  of  note,  503  f. ; 
alleged  phenomena  reported  by  her 
observers,    504  f. ;     failure    of    the 


'controls'  to  take  the  card-experi- 
ment, 505,  535 ;  observations  of  the 
customary  seance  phenomena, 
506  ff. :  (1)  Relation  of  the  "voices" 
to  the  psychic's  physiological  pro- 
cesses, 506  ff. ;  as  reported  from 
the  literature,  506  ff. ;  as  shown  by 
kymograph  records  of  respiration 
and  carotid  pulse,  507  ff. ;  appara- 
tus, 508;  chronicle  of  records, 
509  f. ;  records,  510;  curves 
shown,  512  ff.,  516  ff.;  hypothesis 
of  sympathetic  activity  examined, 
520  f. ;  curves,  522  ;  further  inves- 
tigation projected,  524.  (2)  Rela- 
tion of  the  "physical  phenomena"  to 
the  psychic's  body,  524  ff. ;  as  re- 
ported from  the  literature,  524  f., 
527 ;  as  indicated  by  observation, 
525  ff. ;  displacement  of  tubing, 
525  f. ;  smudge  on  the  drum,  526; 
scale-cover  records,  528  ff. ;  print- 
er's ink.  531  ;  operating  of  the  tele- 
graph instrument,  531  f. ;  tying  of 
psychic  not  important,  532  f. ;  anaes- 
thesia for  automatic  phenomena, 
532  f.,  note  43 ;  amnesia  for  som- 
nambulistic phenomena,  533  f.,  note 
44;  further  investigation  projected. 
534-  (3)  Relation  of  the  "Seance 
personalities"  to  the  psychic's  mind, 
535  ff. ;  willing  cooperation  of  psy- 
chic and  'controls,'  536 ;  apprehen- 
sion, after  opportunities  were  pro- 
vided for  contact  phenomena,  536  f. ; 
misuse  of  force,  537 ;  substitution 
of  undesignated  phenomena,  538; 
limitation  of  controls'  knowledge, 
538  ff. ;  reproduction  of  past  ex- 
perience, 540  f.,  note  49;  principles 
of  interpretation,  542  f. ;  further 
work  projected,  535  f.,  543  f. ;  al- 
ternative explanations  by  members 
of  the  Society,  544  ff. ;  the  projected 
continuation  of  investigation  hang- 
ing fire,  546  f . 

Truth,  articulation  with  organized 
knowledge  is  test  of  new,  (Jordan), 
v;  criterion  of,  must  come  from  rec- 
ognized departments  of  knowledge, 
(Gurney),  462;  agreement  of  ex- 
perts is  final  test  of,  (Sidgwick), 
468 

Tying  of  'medium'  not  important,  532 

U-form  curve,  typical  of  scientific  esti- 
mates, 247,  249,  254 ;  typical  of  a 
common   "personal    scale,"   265,   286 

Unconscious  association,  (Scripture, 
Jerusalem,  Thomas),  175  f. ;  a  re- 
markable  performance   in,  212  f. 


INDEX   OF  SUBJECTS 


641 


cerebration,"  (Carpenter,  Lay- 
cock),   172 

psychical    elements,     (Kiilpe), 


172  f. 

■  psychical  stimuli,    (Lipps),   172 

■  whispering,     as     a     factor     in 

thought-transference,  31  ff. 

U.  S.  Census  shows  influence  of  mental 
habit  in  age  returns,  231  ff.,  253,  and 
in  criminal  sentences,  234  ff.,  253 

Unknown  tongues,  speaking  in,  see 
Glossolalia 

Unrecognized  stimuli,  affect  judgment 
in  experiments  on  sensible  discrim- 
ination,   (Peirce   and  Jastrow),   173 

Venn's  statement  that  anything  may  oc- 
cur by  chance,  149,  316 

Vision,  augmented  in  hypnotized  sub- 
jects,   (Bergson),    174;    (Sauvaire), 

175 

Visual  images,   projection   of,  and  local 


ghosts,     (Martin),    413,    see    Local 

ghosts 
"Voices,"    relation    of,    to    the    psychic's 

physiological  processes,  506  ff. 
Wirthian   tachistoscope,  used  in  experi- 
ments    on     subliminal     impression, 

191  ff. 
"Wise-Knut,"   hears  voices   singing  and 

follows  text  with  his  finger,  (Bjorn- 

son),  368 
Word-reaction      experiment,      illustrates 

psychical     communism,    285  f.,    307, 

363  f  • 

Wundtian  tachistoscope,  used  in  experi- 
ments on  subliminal  impression, 
198  ff. 

Yule's  "practical  limit"  of  chance  devia- 
tion, 86;  related  to  empirical  and 
theoretical  distributions,  317  ff. ; 
conforms  with  Pearson's  practice, 
330;  see  L 


ERRATA. 

PAGE 

io,  line   20,   "son"   should  read  "person" 

12,  line  io,  "Mr.  and  Mrs."  should  read  "Mr.  or  of  Mrs." 

34.  line  6   (from  bottom),   "I'.aird"  should  read   "Beard" 

74,  Table  XXX.  line  i.  "200"  under  "Total"  should  read  "220" 

78,  line  3   (from  the  bottom).  "12:9-11"  should  read  "11:9-11" 

81.  note  147,  the  dash  under  "log  y2"  belongs  under  "log  log  e" 

84.  line  17,  "b-  =  .051"  should  read  "6  =  .051" 

95,  line    16,   "binomial   theorem"   should   read   "binomial" 

96,  note  167,  formula  should  read 

97,  Table  XLIII,  line  "CRP...C  R"  belongs  below  line  "Below  x  .  .  .  Exactly 

x,"  as  in  Table  XLIV,  p.  98 
no,  note  179,  formula  should  read 


^ 





v 

as  in  note  138,  p.  315 
110,  line  4   (from  bottom),  "(7)"  should  read  "(y)" 
165.  line  22  should  follow  line  25 
181,  line  18,  "2p"  should  read  ".2p" 

275,  line   2    (from   bottom),   "96-104"   should   read    "95-104" 
310,  line  27,  for  "expectd"  read  "expected" 

322,  line  6,  "or  drawing  of  Balls"  should  read  "and  drawing  of  Balls" 
393,  line   10,  "substitutions  were"  should  read  "substitutions  was" 
425,  line   18,  "dates"  should   read   "data" 
429,  line  7  belongs  below  the  cut 
474,  line  9,  "which  which"  should  read  "with  which" 
489,  line  12,  "It  was  a  triangle"  should  read  "It  was  a  tangle" 

489,  note  50  should  read:    "Ibid.  Cf.,  Fig.  7,  p.  481,  supra." 

490.  last  paragraph  should  be  spaced  off  from  the  preceding  paragraph  to  show  that 

it  does  not  continue  the  preceding  quotation 
492,  line  27,  "Fig.  22."  should  read  "No.  22,   (Fig.  7,  p.  481,  supra)." 
498.  note  97  should  continue:   "Lux,  1895,  8:    Nos.  8,  9." 
509,  line   10,  "General  Roland"  should  read  "Colonel  Roland" 
521,  line  II,  "curves  above"  should  read  "curves  below" 
541,  line   14,  "Mr.   Cooke"  should  read  "Mr.   Cocke" 

625,  to  "Crookes,  W."  add  page  "2" 

626,  to  "Dunlap,  K."  add  page  "xviii" 
626,  to  "Gurney,  E."  add  page  "2" 
626,  to  "James,  W."  add  page  "vi" 


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